East Timor Wants Pipeline from Greater Sunrise Field

East Timor's Petroleum Minister has said his country will veto the development of a gas field jointly owned with Australia if a pipeline isn't built to his country, ABC News has reported.

Part of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field lies within the Joint Petroleum Development Area in the Timor Sea, which is controlled by both countries and is being developed by a consortium of oil companies, led by Woodside Petroleum.

Woodside's preferred option is to build a floating LNG plant at the gas site, but Minister Alfredo Pires says he won't allow the project to proceed unless his country is responsible for processing and exporting the gas, the ABC news report said.

"There's no other option for Greater Sunrise," he said. "As resource owners, we've very much decided that the most favoured option for us is a pipeline to Timor Leste. And if the pipeline is not coming the direction of Timor Leste, let's just leave it for future generations."