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Opinion

COVID-19 wipes out East Timor's dreams of oil and gas riches

Chinese investment the only hope for project championed by Xanana Gusmao

| East Timor
Boys watch an Australian Navy ship maneuver off the coast of Dili, the capital of East Timor: the country's long-held dream to create a domestic petroleum industry is in jeopardy.   © AP

Ian Lloyd Neubauer is a freelance journalist based in Indonesia.

COVID-19 and the global collapse in oil and gas prices appear to have put the final nail into the coffin of East Timor's long-held dream to create a domestic petroleum industry that would end its dependence on foreign aid and secure its viability as a sovereign state.

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