East Timor has talked with Chinese firms including state-owned Sinopec about developing the stalled Greater Sunrise gas field, President Jose Ramos-Horta said on Wednesday, after disagreements with Australia over the shared field's future.
The field, whose revenues were estimated at $65 billion in 2018, is vital to the economy of the poor Southeast Asian country but has been stalled for decades due to disagreements with Australia, which shares the field, and operator Woodside Energy, which is meant to spearhead the project's development.
A bitter dispute over a maritime boundary was resolved in 2018. Now the main hurdle is disagreement over whether to pipe the gas to a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in East Timor or to an existing LNG hub in Darwin.
Ramos-Horta has previously suggested East Timor could bring in new partners like China if the deal is not made on their terms, raising concerns in Australia about growing Chinese power and influence in the pacific region.
Ramos-Horta told Reuters that East Timor had talked with a number of private and state-owned Chinese firms and that representatives of some of these had visited as part of a recent Chinese business delegation.
Asked whether Sinopec was among those companies, Ramos-Horta said "Sinopec has been in touch".
Sinopec, officially known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ramos-Horta was speaking after delivering a speech in Canberra at which he said: "We look for partners. If Australia doesn't feel like doing it, that is totally understandable. Then either we talk with the Chinese or the Kuwaitis."
East Timor and China upgraded their bilateral ties last year during a visit by Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to Beijing, where he met President Xi Jinping.
They signed an agreement to cooperate more closely on agriculture and infrastructure development. The deal also provided scope for Chinese government and commercial loans.
The development of the Greater Sunrise field is critical to East Timor's economy as its main source of revenue - the Bayu Undan oil and gas field - is exhausted and stopped exporting gas last year.
(Reuters - Reporting by Peter Hobson in Canberra, Lewis Jackson in Sydney and Colleen Howe in Beijing; Editing by Michael Perry)