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The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of
Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...
, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia. The sea contains a number of reefs, uninhabited islands and significant
hydrocarbon In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and hydrophobic, and their odors are usually weak or ...
reserves. International disputes emerged after the reserves were discovered resulting in the signing of the
Timor Sea Treaty Formally known as the Timor Sea Treaty between the Government of East Timor and the Government of Australia was signed between Australia and East Timor in Dili, East Timor on 20 May 2002, the day East Timor attained its independence from United ...
. The Timor Sea was hit by the worst oil spill for 25 years in 2009. It is possible that Australia's first inhabitants crossed the Timor Sea from the
Malay Archipelago The Malay Archipelago ( Indonesian/ Malay: , tgl, Kapuluang Malay) is the archipelago between mainland Indochina and Australia. It has also been called the " Malay world," " Nusantara", "East Indies", Indo-Australian Archipelago, Spices Arc ...
at a time when sea levels were lower.


Etymology

The Timor Sea is named after
Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...
, the island on the other side of the sea's northern coastline. The island's name is a variant of , Malay for "east". In Tetum, the expression () is often used to refer to the Timor Sea. The counterpart of that body of water, the ' Ombai- Wetar Strait', which has smaller waves, is less
turbid Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality. Fluids c ...
, and washes most of Timor island's northern shores, is commonly referred to in Tetum as ().


Geography

The waters to the east are known as the Arafura Sea. The Timor Sea is adjacent to three substantial inlets on the north Australian coast, the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Beagle Gulf and the Van Diemen Gulf. The Australian city of Darwin which is located in part on the shore of the Beagle Gulf, is the nearest large city to the sea. The small town of Wyndham is located on the west arm of Cambridge Gulf, an inlet of Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. Rivers that enter the Timor Sea from the Northern Territory include Fish River, King River, Dry River, Victoria River and the
Alligator Rivers Alligator Rivers is the name of an area in an Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory of Australia, containing three rivers, the East, West, and South Alligator Rivers. It is regarded as one of the richest biological regions in Australia, ...
. Rivers in the Kimberley region that flow into the Timor Sea include the Ord River, Forrest River, Pentecost River and Durack River. The sea is about wide, covering an area of about . Its deepest point is the
Timor Trough The Timor Trough is an oceanic trough that is a continuation of the Sunda Trench (Java Trench) that marks the boundary between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Timor Plate. It is separated from the Sunda Trench by a sag near Sumba Island at the ...
(which some geologists consider is the south-eastern extension of the
Java Trench The Sunda Trench, earlier known as and sometimes still indicated as the Java Trench, is an oceanic trench located in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, formed where the Australian- Capricorn plates subduct under a part of the Eurasian Plate. It is ...
, but others view as a foreland trough to the Timor Island "mountain range"), located in the northern part of the sea, which reaches a depth of . The remainder of the sea is much shallower, much of it averaging less than deep, as it overlies the Sahul Shelf, part of the Australian
continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...
. The Big Bank Shoals is an area on the sloping seabed between the continental shelf and the Timor Trough where a number of submerged banks are located. The ecosystem of the shoals differs significantly from the deeper waters surrounding them. In May 2010, it was announced that a crater about wide has been discovered on the seabed of the Timor Sea.


Extent

The
International Hydrographic Organization The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is an intergovernmental organisation representing hydrography. , the IHO comprised 98 Member States. A principal aim of the IHO is to ensure that the world's seas, oceans and navigable waters ...
(IHO) defines the Timor Sea as being one of the waters of the East Indian Archipelago. The IHO defines its limits as follows:
''On the North'' The Southeastern limit of the Savu Sea
Timor_ Timor_is_an__island_at_the_southern_end_of__Maritime_Southeast_Asia,_in_the_north_of_the__Timor_Sea._The_island_is_divided_between_the__sovereign_states_of__East_Timor_on_the_eastern_part_and__Indonesia_on_the_western_part._The_Indonesian_part,_...
_to_the_Northeast_point_of_Rote_Island.html" "title="y a line from the Southwest point of
Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...
to the Northeast point of Rote Island">Roti Roti (also known as chapati) is a round flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent. It is popular in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, Trin ...
, through this island to its Southwest point] the Southeastern coast of Timor and the Southern limit of the Banda Sea [A line from Tanjong Aro Oesoe, through Sermata to Tanjong Njadora the Southeast point of Lakov () along the South coasts of Lakov, Moa and Leti Islands to Tanjong Toet Pateh, the West point of Leti, thence a line to Tanjong Sewirawa the Eastern extremity of Timor]. ''On the East.'' The Western imitof the Arafura Sea line from Cape Don to Tanjong Aro Oesoe, the Southern point of Selaroe (Tanimbar Islands)]. ''On the South.'' The North coast of
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
from Cape Don Light, Cape Don to Cape Londonderry (). ''On the West.'' A line from Cape Londonderry to the Southwest point of Rote Island, Roti Island ().


Meteorology

Many tropical storms and
cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an an ...
s originate or pass through the Timor Sea. In February 2005, Tropical Cyclone Vivienne disrupted oil and gas production facilities in the area, and the next month, Severe Tropical Cyclone Willy interrupted production. Petroleum production facilities are designed to withstand the effects of cyclones, although as a safety precaution production work is often reduced or temporarily halted and workers evacuated by helicopter to the mainland - usually to Darwin or
Dili Dili ( Portuguese/ Tetum: ''Díli'') is the capital, largest city of East Timor and the second largest city in Timor islands after Kupang (Indonesia). It lies on the northern coast of the island of Timor, in a small area of flat land hemmed i ...
.


Reefs and islands

A number of significant islands are located in the sea, notably Melville Island, part of the
Tiwi Islands The Tiwi Islands ( tiw, Ratuati Irara meaning "two islands") are part of the Northern Territory, Australia, to the north of Darwin adjoining the Timor Sea. They comprise Melville Island, Bathurst Island, and nine smaller uninhabited islands, w ...
, off Australia and the Australian-governed Ashmore and Cartier Islands. It is thought that early humans reached Australia by "island-hopping" across the Timor Sea. Scott and Seringapatam Reefs formed in the area and to the west, on the same underwater platform, are the Rowley Shoals.


History


World War II

During the 1940s the
Japanese navy , abbreviated , also simply known as the Japanese Navy, is the maritime warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. The JMSDF was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) ...
conducted air raids on Australia from ships in the Timor Sea. On the 19 February 1942 the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga with other vessels, launched air strikes against
Darwin, Australia Darwin ( ; Laragiya language, Larrakia: ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. With an estimated population of 147,255 as of 2019, the city contains the majority of the residents of the spa ...
, sinking nine ships, including the '' USS Peary''. This bombing marked the beginning of the
Battle of Timor The Battle of Timor occurred in Portuguese Timor and Dutch Timor during the Second World War. Japanese forces invaded the island on 20 February 1942 and were resisted by a small, under-equipped force of Allied military personnel—known as ...
in the Pacific theatre of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.


Hydrology


Timor Current

The Timor Current is an oceanic current that runs south-west in the Timor Sea between the Malay Archipelago and Australia. It is a major contributor to the
Indonesian Throughflow The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF; ) is an ocean current with importance for global climate as is the low-latitude movement of warm, relative freshwater from the north Pacific to the Indian Ocean. It thus serves as a main upper branch of the glob ...
that transports water from the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...
to the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
.


Hydrocarbon reserves

Beneath the Timor Sea lie considerable reserves of oil and gas. Confirmation of the prospectivity of the Timor Sea came when Woodside-Burmah's Big John rig drilled Troubadour No. 1 well in June 1974 on the Troubadour Shoals about southeast of Timor, and intersected of hydrocarbons. A number of offshore petroleum projects are in operation and there is considerable exploration activity either underway and numerous proposed projects. A gas pipeline crosses the Timor Sea from the Joint Petroleum Development Area to Wickham Point near Darwin. The Timor Sea was the location for Australia's largest
oil spill An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into t ...
when the Montara oil field leaked oil, natural gas and condensate from 21 August to 3 November 2009. During the spill of oil leaked each day. The Montara Commission of Inquiry placed blame on the Thai company PTTEP, owner of the wells.


Bayu-Undan project

The largest petroleum project in operation in the Timor Sea is the Bayu-Undan project operated by Santos. The Bayu-Undan field is located approximately north-west of Darwin in the
Bonaparte Basin The Bonaparte Basin is a sedimentary basin in Western Australia and the Northern Territory of Australia. Its total area is approximately , most of which is offshore. The sedimentary basin emerges at the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf and extends int ...
. Production commenced in 2004 as a gas recycle project - with liquids (condensate, propane and butane) being stripped from the raw production stream and exported. Gas was pumped back down into the reservoir. At around the same time, construction commenced on a subsea natural gas pipeline connecting the Bayu-Undan processing facility to a
liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the vol ...
plant situated at Wickham Point in Darwin harbour. Since the completion of the pipeline and the Darwin LNG plant in 2005, gas produced offshore at Bayu-Undan is now transported to the Darwin plant where it is converted into a liquid and transported to
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
under long-term sales contracts. Timor-Leste has made, as of 2017, over $18 billion from Bayu-Undan since production began; however, it is predicted its reserves will be exhausted by 2023.


Ichthys gas field

The
Ichthys gas field The Ichthys gas field is a natural gas field located in the Timor Sea, off the northwestern coast of Australia. The field is located offshore Western Australia and southwest of Darwin, with an average water depth of approximately It was discov ...
is a natural gas field located in the Timor Sea, off the northwestern coast of
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. The field is located 220 km offshore Western Australia and 820 km southwest of Darwin, with an average water depth of approximately 250 metres. It was discovered in 2000. First Gas from the Ichthys field was achieved on 30 July 2018.


Other projects

AED Oil owns the large oil project at Puffin oilfield and Woodside Petroleum is producing oil at the Laminaria oilfield. The Greater Sunrise gas field, discovered in 1974, is one of the largest in the area and is expected to earn East Timor several billion dollars in royalty revenues. Woodside Petroleum plans to process gas from Greater Sunrise via a floating platform, however Xanana Gusmão, East Timor's Prime Minister opposes this plan and instead wants the gas to go t
Beaço
via a pipeline for processing.


Territorial dispute

Since the discovery of petroleum in the Timor Sea in the 1970s, there have been disputes surrounding the rights to ownership and exploitation of the resources situated in a part of the Timor Sea known as the Timor Gap, which is the area of the Timor Sea which lies outside the territorial boundaries of the nations to the north and south of the Timor Sea. These disagreements initially involved Australia and Indonesia, although a resolution was eventually reached in the form of the
Timor Gap Treaty The Timor Gap Treaty was formally known as the ''Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the zone of cooperation in an area between the Indonesian province of East Timor and Northern Australia''. It was a bilateral treaty betwee ...
. After declaration of East Timor's nationhood in 1999, the terms of the Timor Gap Treaty were abandoned and negotiations commenced between Australia and East Timor, culminating in the
Timor Sea Treaty Formally known as the Timor Sea Treaty between the Government of East Timor and the Government of Australia was signed between Australia and East Timor in Dili, East Timor on 20 May 2002, the day East Timor attained its independence from United ...
. From 1965 to 2018, Australia's territorial claim extended to the bathymetric axis (the line of greatest sea-bed depth) at the Timor Trough. It overlapped East Timor's own territorial claim, which followed the former colonial power
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...
and the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 167 ...
in claiming that the dividing line should be midway between the two countries. In 2018, Australia agreed to a median line boundary. It was revealed in 2013 that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) planted listening devices to listen to East Timor during negotiations over the Greater Sunrise oil and gasfields. This is known as the
Australia–East Timor spying scandal The Australia–East Timor spying scandal began in 2004 when the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) clandestinely planted covert listening devices in a room adjacent to the East Timor (Timor-Leste) Prime Minister's Office at Dili, to ...
.


Timor Sea Treaty

The
Timor Sea Treaty Formally known as the Timor Sea Treaty between the Government of East Timor and the Government of Australia was signed between Australia and East Timor in Dili, East Timor on 20 May 2002, the day East Timor attained its independence from United ...
, which was signed on the 20 May 2002, led to the establishment of the Timor Sea Designated Authority (TSDA). This organisation is responsible for the administration of all petroleum-related activities in a part of the Timor Sea known as the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA). The treaty was ratified in February 2007. Under the terms of the treaty, royalties on petroleum production in the JPDA are split in a 90:10 ratio between
East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-w ...
and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. It has been criticised because the treaty did not finalise the maritime boundary between East Timor and Australia.


2018 Maritime Boundaries Treaty

The ''Australia–Timor Leste Treaty Establishing Their Maritime Boundaries in the Timor Sea'' was signed on 6 March 2018 at United Nations headquarters in New York in the presence of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.Australian Senate Economics Legislation Committee, ''Report: Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty Consequential Amendments Bill 2018 [Provisions
/nowiki> and the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Bill 2018'' [Provisions], 8 February 2019]; Hao Duy Phan, Tara Davenport and Robert Beckman (eds.), ''Timor-Leste/Australia Conciliation: A Victory for UNCLOS and Peaceful Settlement,'' Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore, 2019.


See also

* Banda Sea * The great Jukung race


References


External links

* Khamsi, Kathryn (2005)
"A Settlement to the Timor Sea Dispute?"
''Harvard Asia Quarterly'' 9 (1) 6–23.


Robert J. King, Submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on the provisions of the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty, January 2019
{{Authority control Australia–East Timor border Australia–Indonesia border Bodies of water of Australia Bodies of water of East Timor Coastline of the Northern Territory East Timor–Indonesia border Seas of Indonesia Seas of the Indian Ocean