Karon Snowdon – Woodside Petroleum has denied reports it is willing to consider processing gas from the Greater Sunrise field in East Timor.

In an email to Radio Australia, Woodside spokeswoman Laura Hammer said the floating LNG remained the preferred development concept for Sunrise. She confirmed the company discussed the land option in meetings with officials in order to explain why it wasn't viable.

But East Timor Sunrise Commissioner Fransisco da Costa Monteiro says Woodside has backed away from its position that an offshore floating platform is the best option. He says he believes there has been a commitment by Woodside to consider all options equally.

"Woodside has retracted from its position to now submitting for our appreciation and review the three concepts," he said. "We are talking about concepts at the moment, so there are three concepts on the table."

Mr Monteiro says the East Timor's preferred option is that the project be built in the country. "As far as Timor Leste is concerned, which we present several times, is the position and the policy remains that...the development of the LNG should on the shores of Timor Leste," he said.

East Timorese officials have been in talks with Australian government officials and Woodside in Dili over the past two days. The negotiations are a bid to break the impasse over East Timor's insistence that it hosts the gas processing plant. Mr Monteiro says further talks are required.

Earlier, hundreds of protesters shouted anti-Australia slogans in East Timor before the talks. Four hundred student protesters in the capital, Dili, shouted "Australia is a thief" and "Down with Australia" as Australian officials arrived for talks on the development of the Greater Sunrise project.

East Timor has strongly opposed the Greater Sunrise consortium's proposal to process the gas on a floating platform in the Timor Sea separating the two countries, instead of on East Timorese soil.