East Timor is offering to invest $800 million to build a pipeline to take gas from the Timor Sea to the tiny nation, as it makes a new pitch to resolve a dispute with Australia's Woodside Petroleum over how to develop huge fields in the area.
Below is a timeline of some key events involving the Greater Sunrise project
1972: Australia and Indonesia agree on a maritime boundary based on what Canberra says is the edge of its continental shelf. Portuguese-controlled East Timor does not accept this boundary. 1974 The Sunrise and Troubadour gas fields are discovered in the Timor Sea between the two. They estimated to contain 5.13 trillion cubic feet of dry gas, 225.9 million barrels of condensate and are collectively known as the Greater Sunrise gas fields.
1975: Indonesia invades East Timor, occupies it until 1999.
1982: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea finalised, favors delineation of sea boundaries at the midline between two countries.
March: Australia does not accept provisions under the 2002 convention that would subject it to compulsary dispute resolution for sea boundary disputes.
May: East Timor becomes independent.
2002-2003: East Timor signs contracts with Woodside and JV partners for Sunrise project development.
2003: Timor Sea Treaty comes into force. The treaty establishes the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA), a region with overlapping claims from Australia and East Timor. Under the treaty, East Timor receives 90 percent of revenues from oil and gas resources developed in the area, while Australia gets the rest.
2007; International Unitisation Agreement on Sunrise (IUA) and Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) comes into force.
The IUA established that only 20 percent of the Greater Sunrise fields fall in the JPDA and allots 80 percent of the Greater Sunrise fields to Australia. Under IUA, East Timor would have received only around 18 percent of revenues from Sunrise fields.
CMATS splits the revenue from the Sunrise fields 50-50 and implements a gag rule that prevents Australia and East Timor from discussing their disputed maritime boundary.
Feb. As of this month, CMATS allows for unilateral 2013 suspension of the agreement if Sunrise fields not developed.
April: East Timor files for arbitration, alleging that 2013 Australia engaged in espionage during negotiations for CMATS, making the treaty invalid. Australia will not confirm or deny the allegations, but has said the accusation is not new.
2024: East Timor largest producing field, Bayu Undan, expected to run dry.
[Sources: Australia Legal Information Institute, La'o Hamutuk, Australian government websites, East Timor government, United Nations website, International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea webiste, and Woodside Petroleum. Reporting by Rebekah Kebede; Editing by Ed Davies.]