Floating LNG best for Dili: Woodside

Woodside Petroleum says a floating LNG plant remains its preferred option for the Greater Sunrise gas field, after an East Timor official said Woodside was reviewing other processing options.

East Timor official Fransisco Monteiro said the company, a major partner in the Greater Sunrise consortium, had backed away from its position that an offshore floating platform was the most economically viable option.

Mr Monteiro has been holding talks with Australian government officials and Woodside in Dili over the past two days in a bid to break the impasse over East Timor's insistence the gas be piped to East Timor for processing.

"Today was very impressive because Woodside came with three options. They used to only have one option and that was only to process the gas on a floating platform," he told AFP.

"Now they also offered options of a pipeline coming into East Timor or a pipeline coming into Darwin" in northern Australia.

Mr Monteiro said further talks would be required but warned that Dili would "use any means" to ensure the gas from the gas field - split 50-50 between East Timor and Australia - would be processed in East Timor.

"This is one step ahead, which is good and positive. And we can be a little happy because our strategy has been well executed and they have changed their position. Hard work, however, is still needed to achieve our target," he said.

In a statement Woodside said, "Floating LNG remains the preferred development concept for Sunrise."

"The Sunrise Joint Venture was delighted to be invited by the Sunrise Commission to attend its meeting in Dili and looks forward to any opportunity to continue its dialogue with the Timor-Leste and Australian regulators.

"The Joint Venture is providing requested information to the Commission and to the Joint Petroleum Development Area regulator and the National Petroleum Authority.

"The Sunrise Joint Venture is committed to working with Australia and Timor-Leste to ensure the Sunrise project provides significant benefits to all stakeholders. This includes jobs, training, education and social investment," the statement said.

About 400 protesters shouted anti-Australian slogans on Tuesday as officials from Canberra arrived at the first day of the talks with their East Timorese counterparts over the troubled project.

The student protesters shouted "Australia is a thief" and "Down with Australia", and carried banners condemning Woodside for treating the East Timorese as "fools" and trying to "steal" the tiny country's resources.

East Timor, which agreed to split projected multi-billion dollar revenues 50-50 with Australia after a maritime border dispute, has said a floating platform is untested and carries an unacceptably high level of uncertainty.

The joint venture however says it has studied all three options and the floating platform is the most economically viable.

The Sunrise Joint Venture comprises Woodside (33.4 per cent), ConocoPhillips (30 per cent), Shell (26.6 per cent) and Osaka Gas (10 per cent).