Calmer waters in Timor Leste?
A new exploration deal should benefit Timor-Leste and may point to a breakthrough in a maritime dispute with Australia
In April Australia's Timor Resources became the first private oil and gas company in more than 40 years to win the right to explore and develop Timor-Leste's onshore fields when it signed two production-sharing contracts with state-owned authority AMPM. The deal, which covers two blocks, marks a breakthrough in the impoverished, recently independent country's long-planned $2bn project to establish a petroleum corridor along its southern coast. The deal is all the more surprising because Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor, is still embroiled in a dispute over maritime zones with Australia that finally ended up in The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration in mid-2016, despite Canberra'
Also in this section
10 March 2026
From Venezuela to Hormuz, the US—backed by the most powerful military force ever assembled—is redrawing not only oil and gas flows but also the global balance of energy power
10 March 2026
By shutting the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has cut exports of distillate-rich Middle Eastern crude, jet fuel and diesel, and is holding the energy market hostage
10 March 2026
Eni’s director for global gas and LNG portfolio, Cristian Signoretto, discusses how demand will respond to rising LNG supply, and how the company is expanding its own gas and LNG operations through disciplined, capital-efficient investments
9 March 2026
Petroleum Economist analysis sees increases in output from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Kazakhstan among others before region’s murky descent
