Australia hopes to strike Timor deal soon

Australia hopes to strike Timor deal soon

CANBERRA: Australia is "hopeful" of reaching an agreement with
East Timor on petroleum royalties from the Timor Sea in the "near
future," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

"Hopefully we can reach an agreement in the near future,"
Downer said on Tuesday in an interview from Canberra. "The way
things are looking at the moment -- they're looking reasonably
promising."

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. stopped work on its proposed US$3.7
billion Sunrise LNG project in the Timor Sea at the end of
December because of the dispute between Australia and East Timor
over maritime boundaries and the division of petroleum royalties
from the Timor Sea fields.

East Timor hasn't ratified a treaty on revenue-sharing from
the Sunrise project, saying the existing boundary gives Australia
too big a share of royalties. --Bloomberg