A spokesperson for East Timor Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta was quoted by AAPas saying all that was now needed for the treaty to come into effect was an exchange of letters between the two governments.

Signed a year ago, the treaty provides for Australia and East Timor to share the royalties from Woodside Petroleum’s shelved Greater Sunrise liquefied natural gas project on a 50:50 basis. This compares to the 80:20 ratio initially proposed.

The East Timor parliament yesterday passed the two resolutions concerning Greater Sunrise and the related maritime boundary agreement with Australia, with 48 votes in favour and five against.

Woodside pointed to the ratification in its full-year results, released today.

“This now provides legal and regulatory certainty for the development of the Greater Sunrise gas fields and is a significant step forward,” it said.

“In order to progress Sunrise, we now need to focus on reaching agreement on the optimal development concept, marketing of the resource and conclusion of fiscal certainty arrangements.”

It is estimated the Greater Sunrise gas field – the Timor Sea’s largest petroleum asset – could provide up to $13 billion of revenue to the tiny impoverished nation.

Woodside Petroleum froze the $6.6 billion project in 2004 as negotiations between the two nations dragged on.

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 – whose other stakeholders comprise ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas – would not come onstream until the middle of the next decade at the earliest.