How much oil money has Australia already stolen from Timor-Leste? A look at Laminaria-Corallina Updated March 2016

How much oil money has Australia already stolen from Timor-Leste? A look at Laminaria-Corallina  Updated March 2016

Osan hira mak Australia nauk ona husi Timor-Leste? Hare ba Laminaria-Corallina

The Laminaria-Corallina oil field in the Timor Sea is just outside the Joint Petroleum Development Area, twice as close to Timor-Leste as it is to Australia. It belongs to Timor-Leste under current international legal principles (UNCLOS). Laminaria-Corallina has produced 203 million barrels of oil since starting production in late 1999. Australia has made more than two billion dollars from this field, but Timor-Leste has not received one cent.The field is almost entirely depleted, but production could continue for a while. Woodside's reserve estimates for the end of 2015 said that Laminaria-Corallina contains less than 0.5 million recoverable barrels. How much money has Australia taken from Timor-Leste? Our very conservative calculations show that Australia received more than $2.2 billion U.S. dollars in government revenues from Laminaria-Corallina through the end of 2015, and the actual figure is significantly higher. Until 2005, Woodside’s ownership share of the two joint ventures was 44.9% of Laminaria and 50% of Corallina, a 47.9% portion of the unified field production. In 2005, Woodside purchased an additional share in Laminaria from Shell. Since then, Woodside's share is 59.9% of Laminaria and 66.67% of Corallina, amounting to about 66% of total production. The other shares in these fields are owned by the Canadian company Talisman Resources, which bought Paladin in 2005. In April 2014,Talisman said it wanted to sell them, and two months later, Bloomberg reported on the ongoing process. In May 2015, the entire Talisman company was acquired by Repsol. In June 2015, the West Australian reported that Woodside was also looking to sell its portion. The sale was finalized to an unnamed buyer on 29 September, and transfer of ownership is expected in the second quarter of 2016. The West Australian "understands" that the price (including the FPSO) will be AUD $100-$300 million, and the buyer is the "low-profile Brisbane company Westside." Woodside's 2015 Annual Report said "In September 2015, Woodside entered into a conditional agreement to sell interests in the Laminaria-Corallina Joint Venture, and the parties are working towards satisfaction of the conditions to enable closing of the transaction. The transaction is expected to be completed in 1H 2016." During its 15-year production history, Laminaria-Corallina generated about $6.8 billion in sales, of which about $2.2 billion was paid to the Australian government. Timor-Leste got nothing. The following table gives Woodside’s sales revenues from Laminaria-Corallina for each year from 1999 through 2015. From this, we can calculate the total income to all joint venture partners from these fields, and approximate the tax they would have paid to the Australian