As previously noted, the Greater Sunrise project stalled due to the Woodside-led consortium’s concerns over a lack of legal, fiscal and regulatory clarity and
certainty. With the Sunrise IUA and CMATS coming into force, this clarity and certainty is now assured
It is has been estimated that the project will now
cost more than A$10 billion.
Woodside spent around A$200 million before
suspending work on the project. As a result of this earlier expenditure, the
majority of the offshore development and environmental approvals necessary
for the project to proceed have already been secured. Subsequent to the
Treaties entering into force, Woodside indicated that it would begin work
towards reappraising the Greater Sunrise fields using modern techniques and
technologies, and it anticipated that at least two appraisal wells would need to
be drilled before the exact scope of the Greater Sunrise project could be deter-mined.108 Woodside also stated that marketing efforts for the eventual LNG
production from the project would also resume.
Thus, even with work
recommencing almost immediately, it is anticipated that production from
Greater Sunrise will take the best part of a decade to come on stream.110
A key
unresolved point of discussion, and potential controversy, remains the issue of
where the Sunrise resources will be brought ashore