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Public Consultation by the Timor Sea Office
and the Timor Sea Designated Authority
regarding the Proposed Petroleum Regime for Timor-Leste

August - September 2004

Background

In August 2004, the Timor-Leste government's Timor Sea Office and the Timor Sea Designated Authority (which administers the Joint Petroleum Development Area created by the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty) released draft laws for managing petroleum development. The drafts can be downloaded from the Timor Sea office website:

• Summary

• Draft Timor-Leste Petroleum Act

• Draft Timor-Leste Petroleum Tax Act

• Draft Production Sharing Contract for Timor-Leste

• Draft Production Sharing Contract for the JPDA

• Draft Petroleum Mining Code for the JPDA

The Timor Sea Office also released sections of an amended version of the Timor-Leste Taxation Act as it relates to petroleum, which is referenced by the Draft Timor-Leste Petroleum Tax Act.

After a three-day public consultation in Dili at the end of August, the Timor-Leste government invited organizations and companies to submit written comments. La'o Hamutuk was among several organizations to do so, and we extensively analyzed both the Draft Petroleum Act and the Draft Production Contract.

The Regime was approved by the Council of Ministers in December 2004, and by Parliament in July 2005. Click here for more details on this process and the texts of the laws as enacted.

La'o Hamutuk Submission

Our submission is in three parts (click on each one to read it as HTML):

• A narrative text which discusses major area where the draft legislation requires re-examination, addition or amendment.
  This can also be downloaded as a PDF file in English (92K) or Portuguese (85K) for printing.

• Annotated text of the draft Timor-Leste Petroleum Act.
  This can also be downloaded as PDF (108k) for printing.

• Annotated text of the draft Model Production-Sharing Contract.
  This can also be downloaded as PDF (192k) for printing.

La'o Hamutuk's submission refers to the following documents:

• Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) Reporting Guidelines, PDF

• 2001 Indonesian Petroleum Act (Bahasa Indonesia), HTML
  2001 Indonesian Petroleum Act (English), PDF

• Publish What You Pay Appeal Document (English), MS WORD
  Publish What You Pay Appeal Document (Portuguese), MS WORD

• São Tome and Principe Oil Revenue Management Law Explanatory Notes (English), PDF

• São Tome and Principe Oil Revenue Management Law - Draft (English), MS WORD
  São Tome and Principe Oil Revenue Management Law - Draft (Portuguese), MS WORD

• US & UK Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, PDF

• Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (UN), HTML

Submissions by other organizations (all are PDF files, some are large)

• Global Witness, UK (111K)

• LABEH (Lalenok ba Ema Hotu, Mirror for the People)

• HABURAS

• Palacio da Cinzas (Office of President Xanana Gusmão):
  Alternative Production-Sharing Contract (471K)
  Document Analysis of draft Production-Sharing Contract (95K)

• ConocoPhillips (the U.S.-based oil company which operates Bayu-Undan in the JPDA) wrote a letter and a submission about the proposed taxation regime.

• Woodside Energy Ltd. (on its own behalf, scanned)

• Woodside Energy Limited, on behalf of the JPDA 03-01 Joint venture.  Includes cover letter, annotated PSC (337K) and annotated Petroleum Mining Code (308K).

• World Bank (147K)

• The Timor Sea Office and Timor Sea Designated Authority have posted some of the submissions on their websites, but the list above is probably more complete.

The East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis
1a Rua Mozambique, Farol, Dili, Timor Lorosa’e
P.O. Box 340, Dili, East Timor
Tel: +670-3325013 or +670-723-4330
email: laohamutuk@easttimor.minihub.org
Web: http://www.laohamutuk.org