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