Woodside Petroleum
(ASX:WPL) has reiterated that a floating platform is the best option to develop the Sunrise liquefied natural gas project in the Timor Sea.
Woodside managing director Don Voelte said that piping the gas back to a processing plant in East Timor, as local authorities would prefer, would cost almost $6 billion more and present significant technical risks.
In April, the company and its joint-venture partners unanimously selected a floating LNG platform over the Greater Sunrise field to develop the project.
But the East Timor government wants an onshore development and would prefer to see two other options explored further, such as piping the LNG back to a processing plant in East Timor or Darwin.
But Mr Voelte says piping the oil to East Timor had the highest capital cost and significant risks.
He says that East Timor would earn about $15 billion over the life of the project from its 18% share of the gas, while Australia stood to earn about $22 billion from its 82% share.
Woodside Petroleum posted at $1.8 billion net profit in the year to December 30 2009.
