Xavier La Canna – Woodside Petroleum Ltd will send a high-level team including chief executive Don Voelte to East Timor, after the tiny nation threatened to sink plans for a multi-billion-dollar gas project.

East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, on Friday accused the Australian oil and gas company of arrogance over a decision not to house a liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plant on its shores.

It threatened to pull the plug on a planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) development at the Greater Sunrise fields, between Australia and East Timor.

The oil company responded at its annual general meeting in Perth, where Mr Voelte promised to send a delegation to East Timor next week.

"Myself and the head of our Sunrise project, Jon Ozturgut, and our team will travel to Dili next week as well as to Darwin and speak to the Northern Territory's Chief Minister Paul Henderson as well as the various officials include (Jose) Ramos-Horta, the president of Timor Leste," Mr Voelte said.

The statement from East Timor's government came after Woodside on Thursday revealed that joint venture partners unanimously agreed to use a floating platform to process LNG from the Greater Sunrise fields. Woodside is the operator of the joint venture project that also has participation from ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas.

Both Darwin and East Timor had been vying to house the $5 billion facility, which will process the gas from the huge field, believed to have a gas resource of 5.13 trillion cubic feet, plus 225.9 million barrels of condensate.

East Timor's secretary of state for the Council of Ministers, H.E. Agio Pereira, on Friday said his nation was committed to building an onshore petroleum industry, which included a pipeline from his country to the Greater Sunrise field.

"Timor-Leste will not approve any development of Greater Sunrise that does not include a pipeline to Timor-Leste," Mr Pereira said.

"Woodside was acutely aware of the government's position before today's announcement but chose to proceed regardless. This is not only a source of great concern, but reflects an unacceptable level of arrogance," Mr Pereira said.

Mr Voelte said East Timor's reaction was premature. "I just know what is going to happen and that is the citizens of Timor-Leste are going to start to wonder why their government doesn't promote something that will improve their lives, will provide millions of dollars of income, provide jobs and everything else," Mr Voelte told the shareholders' meeting. "It is probably just a bit of positioning I suspect," he said.

Woodside has said it chose the floating LNG option because under an agreement between East Timor and Australia in 2007 the fields had to be developed in line with best commercial advantage.

RBS analyst Johannes Faul said Mr Voelte should have been smarter in the way he approached working with the East Timorese government.

"He has obviously got them offside so now has to fly up," Mr Faul said. "It is all about damage control and to contain their (East Timor's) anger," he said.

Shares in Woodside were up five cents at $45.50 on Friday.