Joao Gusmao remembers the promises made when the Xanana Gusmão International Airport opened in 2017.
"We were told lots of planes would fly here," the local community leader told the ABC.
"That there'd be jobs and lots of opportunities, especially to the young people.
"But the reality is different."
Sitting in the remote city of Suai, on Timor-Leste's south-east border with Indonesia, the gleaming $120 million facility sits ready, waiting for passengers.
But this airport, built for large jets, barely gets used.
There's one flight scheduled the day the ABC visits — a medical evacuation on a tiny six-seater plane.
These days, that's all the airport is used for.
Despite this, a small army of cleaners relentlessly mops the non-existent footprints and cleans the bathrooms, one of the few local jobs the airport has provided.
The security and check-in desk is unmanned, and the arrival and departure screens are blank.
The X-ray machine doesn't work, and the staff say it never has.
Outside, the car park is empty.
This place, locals say, is more like a "ghost airport".
And it is not the only piece of major infrastructure in the area sitting idle.
Barely a kilometre away from the airport is a four-lane, 33-kilometre 'super highway' built by a Chinese consortium at a cost of around $550 million.
It is like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.
When the ABC visited, vehicles were a novelty.
Over an hour, two trucks and a handful of cars ambled by. A couple of scooters, most driving on the wrong side of the road, tooted as they passed.
They're forced to slow down to avoid three massive sinkholes that have emerged on the road.
"We spent a lot of money on building the airport, highway [but] they're unused," Marta Da Silva, the head of local NGO La'o Hamutuk, told the ABC.
"There's no benefit-cost. There's no return on investment. It's still empty."
"[The government] has come in with a big dream, a big beautiful plan, without thinking about its capacity to implement it."
That plan centres around oil and gas.
'A white elephant'
For more than two decades, the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field, about 150km south-east of Timor-Leste, has been identified as the country's economic saviour, holding resources worth as much as $50 billion.
The highway and airport, known locally as the Tasi Mane project, were built in anticipation of Greater Sunrise oil and gas being processed onshore in Timor.
The airport would serve the expected workforce and supply base, the government said, with the highway connecting the project's planned LNG plant and refinery.
But that never happened.
"Right now it's looking very much like a white elephant," oil and gas analyst Saul Kavonic told the ABC.
The Timor government, which owns more than half of the project, has long resisted calls to pipe the gas through existing infrastructure to Darwin, insisting it be brought to Timor.
Mr Kavonic says "beyond economics" this stance has been driven by "resource nationalism" and the "politics and personalities of very influential people in Timor".
"There's a lot of political capital that has been invested in the idea that Greater Sunrise is going to come to Timor," he said.
"It's understandable. If you can get a big resource project like an LNG project built onshore, there are economic multiplier benefits for the nation that go well beyond the value of the project, or the taxes derived from that project."
But, he says, the commercial realities of Greater Sunrise paint a different picture.
"This project is actually too small to be economic, and developed in Timor, on a purely commercial basis," he said.
"About a third of the project is owned by Woodside, which operates the project.
"The truth is, Woodside does not see this as a priority project for them. No oil and gas company in the world does."
Woodside declined an interview.
The company instead pointed the ABC to a November statement where it committed to a new "cooperation agreement" with the Timor-Leste Government to "carry out studies and activities to mature a Timor-based LNG concept".
The statement said "first LNG" may be produced as early as 2032-2035 "subject to concept selection and investment decisions".
'Commercial issues'
The Greater Sunrise project has a sordid history, spanning more than two decades.
A protracted battle between Australia and Timor-Leste over its maritime border, which involved Greater Sunrise and an Australian government spying controversy, was finally resolved in 2018.
Yet the oil and gas field remains undeveloped.
The saga took another turn last week when Anthony Albanese visited Timor-Leste for his first official visit as prime minister.
Picked up by Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos Horta in his Mini Moke, Mr Albanese held a joint press conference with him and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão.
And Mr Gusmão reaffirmed his country's stance.
"Timor-Leste's position on Greater Sunrise has always, always been clear," he said.
"The natural gas fields of Greater Sunrise must be processed onshore in Timor-Leste. This is essential for our national development and for the long-term strength of our family."
At the press conference, Mr Albanese announced a plan to hand at least a third of Australia's future revenues from the Greater Sunrise project back to Timor-Leste.
Yet he was non-committal when asked about which country the gas should be piped to.
"We acknowledge that there are commercial issues involved, so we will allow that process to occur," he said.
'The China card'
According to Mr Kavonic, there are limited options left on the table for Timor-Leste's government and Greater Sunrise.
He says it could "give in" and allow the gas to be piped to Australia.
Another option is to use the "political card" of potential Chinese investment as a bargaining tool, enticing the Australian government to try to subsidise the project.
Lastly, he says, the Timor-Leste government could buy out Woodside and go it alone.
"This is where they essentially gamble the entire national economy and government budget on a single LNG project with no proven operator," he says.
"I think that would be an exceptionally risky thing for the nation of Timor, in the long term."
In Suai, the world of corporate boardrooms and political press conferences couldn't be further away.
Yet the community has still been affected.
Joao Gusmao says hundreds of people were relocated to make way for the airport and highway project.
As well as jobs that never arrived, they were promised a local mini-market, a chapel, and a kindergarten. None of those have been built.
Yet, despite the delays and the broken promises, he says he supports what the government is doing.
"Development is slow," he said. "It's a long process, but we have to prepare."
"We need these projects for the next generation, so our future isn't as difficult."
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