Timor Leste’s Energy Ambitions Could Make It The ‘Next Guyana’

One of many extra attention-grabbing periods offered on the latest Offshore Know-how Convention (OTC) in Houston targeted on the tiny Indian Ocean nation of Timor-Leste, that includes the President and CEO of Timor Fuel & Petroleo (TIMOR GAP), E.P., Mr. Antonio de Sousa. House to only 1.3 million individuals, Timor-Leste occupies the japanese half of an island shared by West Timor, which is a part of Indonesia.

Upon reaching its nationwide independence from Indonesia in 1999, Timor-Leste turned instantly entangled in a territorial dispute involving possession of what’s referred to as the “Hole” space, a area between its southern shores and the northwest coast of Australia. The matter was of adequate significance and controversy that the United Nations agreed to exchange Indonesia as a celebration to the negotiations. One driver of this, as Mr. de Sousa chronicled in his dialogue, is a good portion of these waters that delineate the Better Dawn Subject, an space of excessive pure fuel potential that was initially found in 1974.

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A 2007 graduate of the Norwegian College of Science and Know-how, Mr. de Sousa has the excellence of being the primary individual in Timor-Leste’s historical past to acquire a grasp’s diploma in petroleum reservoir engineering. He assumed his position at TIMOR GAP at an important time in mid-2020, because the nationwide authorities entered into negotiations on the Better Dawn Particular Regime Authorized Framework between the governments of Timor-Leste an Australia.

An end result of those negotiations has been the formation of a three way partnership that can govern the event of the Better Dawn Subject’s sources, that are at present estimated to have recoverable reserves of 5.1 Trillion Cubic Toes (TCF) of pure fuel and 226 million barrels of condensate. TIMOR GAP owns a 56.56% curiosity in that three way partnership, with Australia-based Woodside Vitality proudly owning 33.44% and serving as operator. The remaining 10% are owned by Japan-based Osaka Fuel.

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The magnitude of the Better Dawn Subject’s useful resource alone might characterize a paradigm shift for the residents of Timor-Leste given the share of the reserves owned by the nation’s authorities, part of which got here as the results of 2018 acquisitions from Shell and ConocoPhillips

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. In an interview following his presentation, Mr. de Sousa acknowledged that the federal government had created a Nationwide Funding Endowment Fund that’s primarily based on the mannequin employed by Norway for a few years associated to its personal oil and fuel revenues sourced from its massive North Sea developments.

The nation’s plans additionally go far past simply producing and promoting the pure fuel and condensate. Mr. de Sousa detailed TIMOR GAP’s plans to create an onshore Timor-Leste LNG export facility for a part of the fuel, in addition to plans to make use of a big share of the fuel that will likely be used to scale back emissions within the island’s energy era. “At the moment, we use heavy fuels (i.e., gas oil) in our energy vegetation,” he acknowledged throughout an interview. The corporate’s web site lists the mixed producing capability of the three vegetation concerned as totaling 272 MWH, and says the Wartsilla engines utilized in them are able to being transformed to make use of pure fuel.

Mr. de Sousa additionally described his firm’s dedication to environmental safety and the steps that will likely be taken to meet it. He additionally acknowledged that the Nationwide Authorities has already developed a set of laws associated to pure fuel flaring and that, amongst different issues, the Joint Enterprise plans to combine each photo voltaic and wind energy into the supply of electrical energy for its operations. He then mentioned plans for a carbon seize and storage undertaking concentrating on one other area referred to as the Bayu-Undan, which is scheduled to be decommissioned quickly. “The dedication by all events to the (three way partnership) settlement to defending the setting is evident,” he mentioned.

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One other key facet of Timor-Leste’s power future is that the Better Dawn Subject is much from the one space of great oil and fuel potential obtainable to it. Mr. de Sousa mentioned that TIMOR GAP is at present conducting seismic surveys and evaluations in a number of different areas, each offshore and onshore, that they consider have potential for future pure fuel and liquids growth.

All this potential had attendees at OTC referring to Timor-Leste as the following Guyana, a reference to the small South American nation whose power and financial future has been fully reworked by the huge oil discovery by ExxonMobil

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and its personal three way partnership companions within the offshore Stabroek Block in recent times. Mr. de Sousa, his crew at TIMOR GAP and their companions have an enormous set of challenges forward of them if they’re to attain an analogous degree of success, however the information surrounding the Better Dawn Subject definitely justify a excessive degree of pleasure and optimism for the long run.