The fledgling country’s Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta was quoted by Reuters as saying the treaty on certain maritime arrangements (CMATS) was due to be voted on by Dili next Monday, February 19.

“I’m confident the parliament will pass them,” he reportedly said.

The CMATS would see East Timor’s share of revenue from Woodside Petroleum’s shelved Greater Sunrise LNG project, which spans the area between the young country and Darwin, be as high as $US14 billion ($A18 billion) because revenue will be split evenly with Australia. This compares to the 80:20 ratio initially proposed.

Australia had been putting off its own ratification until East Timor acted first.

Reuters also quoted Ramos-Horta as saying recently that a petroleum fund created two years ago to ensure transparency in managing the country’s resource income had already accumulated $1 billion.

Greater Sunrise’s stakeholders include operator Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas.

The fields are estimated to contain 8 trillion cubic feet of gas and up to 300 million barrels of condensate.

Greater Sunrise could become part of a Woodside LNG production line.

Pluto is expected to begin once the North West Shelf’s Train 5 is completed and construction work on Browse LNG is due to follow the completion of Pluto. In turn, Greater Sunrise could begin once Browse LNG was completed.

Under this scenario, Greater Sunrise would not come onstream until the middle of the next decade at the earliest.