Overblown Expectations for East Timor's Greater Sunrise Oil and Gas

Mar 5, 2018 | Damon Evans
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Reports that East Timor is set to bank tens of billions of dollars from the potential development of the Woodside Petroleum-operated Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields that straddle the Australian and East Timorese seabed are wide of the mark.  The Sydney Morning Herald, among others, recently reported “East Timor could receive up to 80% of revenue from the A$50 billion (US$40 billion) Greater Sunrise oil and gas field in the Timor Sea under a still-secret agreement with Australia”. But those big numbers set unrealistic expectations for the Timorese and their ardent supporters. The US$40 billion number refers to sales revenues from potential production of liquefied natural gas, or LNG for short, not royalties to a country.