Australia and Timor-Leste Push to Advance Greater Sunrise Gas Field

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his East Timor counterpart, Xanana Gusmao, on Wednesday said the Greater Sunrise gas project should be developed "as soon as possible", with Australia pledging a third of its state revenue to its small neighbor.

Albanese, on his first visit as leader to Australia's northern neighbor, struck a new partnership agreement with Gusmao on Wednesday covering deeper defense ties between the two nations, border security and economic development.

The visit comes as the tiny Catholic nation, which is being courted by China, continues its push to build a liquefied natural gas plant on its south coast instead of piping the gas to a plant in the Australian city of Darwin.

After decades of delays, Australia's Woodside Energy and East Timor agreed in December to study a 5 million metric ton project for the Greater Sunrise fields, an area containing an estimated 5.1 trillion cubic feet of gas that Australia has been discussing, initially with Indonesia, since the 1980s.

A joint statement from the two leaders, distributed by Australia, said the two countries "share an ambition for Greater Sunrise to be developed as soon as possible for the benefit of both states."

Australia said it will establish