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EAST TIMOR has warned it will abandon a multibillion-dollar deal with Australia to exploit natural gas fields in the Timor Sea unless a pipeline is built to deliver the rich bounty directly to the impoverished nation.
Francisco da Costa Monteiro, the special adviser to East Timor’s secretary of state for natural resources, flew to Canberra yesterday for talks with the Federal Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, in an attempt to break the impasse.
East Timor wants gas from the Greater Sunrise project – set to be developed by a consortium led by the resources giant Woodside – to be piped about 200 kilometres to East Timor’s southern coastline, with a new plant to be built for processing.
But Woodside has ruled the idea too expensive, opting instead to examine plans for a floating plant above the field or piping the gas some 500 kilometres to an existing plant in Darwin.
The value of the Sunrise gas field is estimated at more than $50 billion.
The Woodside senior vice-president, Jon Ozturgut, told investors this week a final decision on where to process the gas was on track to be announced by the end of the year.
But Mr Da Costa said the Government in Dili would not accept sending the gas abroad and accused Woodside of ignoring the interests of the Timorese people.
”For us, the best outcome is development of Greater Sunrise on the shores of Timor-Leste that can underpin the overall economic and social development of the country,” he said.
He said it was expected it would cost $8 billion to $10 billion to get the project under way and that investment would drive the development of other services in the country of 1 million people.
”That’s the reason why we see that for Australia this is one drop in a big ocean, but for Timor-Leste this is almost the single biggest [undertaking] and you can imagine how much attention we put into this project,” he said.
In a statement, a spokesman for Mr Ferguson said the destination for the pipeline was a commercial matter to be determined by the project’s joint venture partners.
But Mr Da Costa said that under the terms of various treaties dividing the oil and gas fields between Australia and East Timor, both governments should be left alone to decide how to develop the fields without interference. Woodside should follow that direction.
He said East Timor was willing to leave the resources in the ground for future generations rather than rushing a deal. Resources companies from China and Malaysia have recently been invited to examine the Greater Sunrise field.
”They should start to realise that Timor today is very different from Timor in 2002 and 1999 or before,” Mr Da Costa said, noting that the country had substantial national savings from other resource projects, totalling more than $5 billion.
”If it’s [Great Sunrise] to be developed, then it’s to be developed to Timor-Leste,” he said. ”If it’s not coming to Timor-Leste, then we will not approve anything.”
From: smh
The Australian government has struck a deal with opposition leaders on a revised carbon trading scheme.
The emissions trading scheme (ETS), aimed at reducing Australia’s carbon footprint, is the centrepiece of the government’s environmental strategy.
Opposition parties must give the new deal their backing on Tuesday ahead of a parliamentary vote due this week.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants the scheme passed before next month’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
However, as members of the opposition coalition gathered to debate the new package on Tuesday, Australian media reported strong hostility from some senior party figures.
Correspondents say that if the ETS is defeated in Australia’s upper house, where the government does not have a majority, it would provide a trigger for an early election.
Earlier, Mr Rudd and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong outlined details of the deal.
To win opposition support, the government has agreed to additional compensation for heavy-polluting sectors such as the coal mines and the electricity industry.
‘Good package’
“I think we have an exceptional package. It’s a deal that will protect jobs and the environment in Australia,” said Ian Macfarlane, of the opposition Liberal Party.
He said he was confident the deal would be accepted by opposition parties, but added: “I will wait for the party room to see who is going to decide to vote for this.”
Mr Rudd wants to cut Australia’s carbon emissions by up to 25% from 2000 levels by 2020.
The BBC’s Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says the scheme is still unpopular among many opposition politicians, who question the scientific case for global warming.
Since most of Australia’s prosperity is based on its resources sector – and coal in particular – the energy lobby has argued it would damage the economy, he adds.
Australia has the highest per capita carbon emissions among developed nations and coal is its biggest export.
Mr Rudd told the BBC that he believed a framework agreement on carbon emissions could be struck in Copenhagen that could be turned into a legally binding treaty in 2010.
A warning has been issued to ships in the southern Pacific Ocean after more than 100 iceberg were spotted drifting towards New Zealand.
The icebergs, some of which are 200m (650ft) in size, are believed to have broken from an Antarctic ice floe.
Many scientists have said they believe these segments will break up long before reaching the New Zealand coastline.
The last time such a large flotilla was spotted so nearby was in 2006.
Maritime New Zealand has issued the alert to vessels in the area although it is not a major shipping lane.
Spokesman Ross Henderson said: “It is really just a general warning for shipping in that area to be on the alert for icebergs.”
Earlier spot
Glaciologist Neal Young, from the Australian Antarctic Division, said the flotilla was heading towards New Zealand’s main South Island.
Mr Young said satellite photography spotted just one cluster of icebergs but that was not to say more were around.
He said the closest iceberg – about 30m high (98ft), was 160 miles (257.5km) south east of New Zealand’s Stewart Island.
Earlier this month the Australian government organisation reported larger icebergs were seen floating off Tasmania’s Macquarie Island territory. It is believed this particular flotilla stems from those giant chunks – one which was estimated to be double the size of Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium.
A number of scientists say they believe the icebergs originally broke away from the Ross Sea Ice Shelf in 2000 and have been drifting and slowly breaking apart since then, reports say.
Icebergs this far north are not that unusual
Wendy Lawson
In 2006, a number of icebergs from the same broken shelf came within 16 miles (25km) of the coastline. Before that, the last sighting was in 1931.
Mike Williams, an oceanographer from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said since the icebergs were moving at a speed of just 16 miles (25km) a day, he did not expect many of them to reach New Zealand’s coastline.
Glaciologist Wendy Lawson, from the UK’s Canterbury University, downplayed the sightings.
She told the AP news agency: “Icebergs this far north [near New Zealand] are not that unusual.
“If an iceberg starts off large, it will last longer in the sea. Its movement and where it ends up is determined by the weather, wind, ocean currents and the temperature,” she said.
Scientists are now investigating the conditions which have allowed the icebergs to travel in such a large form for so long.
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