The East Timorese Government has rejected claims by Woodside Petroleum Ltd
(ASX:WPL) that development of the Sunrise natural gas field in the Timor Sea via a floating LNG plant would benefit the country.
The government has continued calls for Woodside to provide full costings for all development options for the project, including an onshore processing plant in East Timor.
The Australian Financial Review reports that East Timor’s government has also raised the possibility that activity would be suspended at the gasfield should the plant not be approved by 2013 or production started by 2017 as required by a treaty between Australia and East Timor.
Just last week, Woodside CEO Don Voelte told a conference in Sydney that the project had made great strides.
Mr Voelte says that building the floating LNG plant in East Timor would provide additional revenues of at least $US65 billion for the country.
But the East Timorese government has accused the company of providing weak and misguided justification for the project.
Woodside Petroleum posted a profit of $1.824 billion for calendar 2009.
