Woodside profit soars to $2.7 billion even as oil prices weaken

Australia’s largest oil and gas company Woodside has delivered a record half-year profit $US1.74 billion ($2.71 billion), up 6 per cent from a year ago as its production was boosted by petroleum assets bought from BHP last year.

Operating revenue jumped 27 per cent to $US7.4 billion in the six months to June 30, the energy giant said in statement to the ASX on Tuesday. Growth was driven by $US2.5 billion in extra revenue from the former BHP assets, which had only been included for one month in the prior-year result and more than made up for a $US878 million sales shortfall from lower oil prices.

The average price Woodside received in the latest half dropped from $US96 a barrel of oil equivalent to just $US74, coming off last year’s war-fuelled peaks.

Mining heavyweight BHP sold its oil and gas assets across Australia, the Americas and North Africa to Perth-based Woodside last year as part of its push to decarbonise its operations around the world.

Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill said her company’s strong financial performance and disciplined capital management enabled it to maintain its dividend payout ratio of about 80 per cent of profits. Underlying net profit was up 4 per cent to $US1.9 billion, with shareholders receiving an 80 US cents per share interim dividend.

“Production for the first half was a record at 91.3 million barrels of oil equivalent,” she said. “The Pluto LNG facility delivered an outstanding 99.9 per cent reliability rate in the five months prior to [a] planned maintenance turnaround, which was completed on schedule.”

The results come on the day before a meeting with offshore unions that will determine if workers on three offshore platforms supplying Woodside’s North West Shelf liquified natural gas plant take industrial action.

The prospect, plus the chance workers at two Chevron plants in WA will follow within weeks, affects 11 per cent of the world’s seaborne gas supply and has caused concern in international gas markets.