It had been expected that two days of official talks in Canberra would lead to an agreement so that legislation could be introduced into federal Parliament next month to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty.
Ratification of the treaty is a precondition of ConocoPhillip's heads of agreement signed in December 2001 with Tokyo Electric Power Co and Tokyo Gas for the sale of three million tonnes of LNG a year over 17 years from the Bayu-Undan field.
A further round of talks is now being planned to agree on mechanism for sharing revenues from the Sunrise reservoirs.
