East Timor's president Wednesday warned the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster highlighted safety fears over plans for an offshore gas plant and urged joint venture partners to agree to build it on land.

Jose Ramos-Horta used his first state visit to Australia to press Dili's case that gas from the Greater Sunrise field should be processed in East Timor, rather than on a floating plant as preferred by lead partner Woodside Petroleum.

He said a pipeline feeding a liquefied natural gas plant in East Timor would bring clear economic benefits for his impoverished country and was a safer option, especially as the Deepwater Horizon oil crisis unfolds off America.

"The concern about the floating option is it is untested technology while the pipeline has been there for decades," Ramos-Horta told a joint news conference with Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

"In view of the complexity and the delicate nature of dealing with oil and gas exploration, as we see in the Gulf of Mexico, we have to take all these things into consideration -- safety as well as commercial viability."

Woodside has said a floating gas plant could save the Greater Sunrise joint venture five billion dollars (4.2 billion US), warning that Dili's preference for an onshore facility carried "significant" risks.

But Ramos-Horta said he did not believe the Timorese option was as expensive as alleged, and that Woodside's claim was yet to be analysed.

"I don't support a pipeline coming into Timor Leste (East Timor) out of patriotic duty. I want to see what the real benefits to Timor Leste (are) against the cost of it," he said.

The project straddles Australia's maritime borders with its tiny northern neighbour, and East Timor agreed to split projected multi-billion dollar revenues 50-50 after a territorial dispute.

Rudd said Australia didn't support "any particular location for the processing of this LNG" and saw it as a matter to be resolved between Dili and the consortium -- Woodside, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas.

Ramos-Horta said he was confident his government would agree on the "best possible option".

"Let's sit down to scrutinise every item of cost of the various options and see what makes real commercial sense for all of us: for Australia as a country that owns part of the Greater Sunrise resource, for Timor Leste and for those who put in the pipeline," he said.