Woodside shares in seven-week high on record production
Shares in Australia’s largest oil and gas producer climbed to a seven-week high after the Perth-based company beat expectations with a record year of gas production.
Woodside Energy shares closed Wednesday at $24.98, up 2.7 percent from Tuesday and hitting their highest level since Dec. 9.
Preliminary figures show Woodside will produce 198.8 million barrels of oil, or oil equivalent, in 2025, above forecasts of 192 million to 197 million barrels.
Interim CEO Liz Westcott said the performance was driven by continued production from Woodside’s Sangomar gas field off the Senegalese coast and the Pluto LNG facility in Western Australia operating with 100 per cent reliability in the second half of the year.
Woodside said production fell 4 per cent in the fourth quarter due to poor weather and reduced demand from Australia’s east coast.
Analysts Nik Burns of Jarden and Saul Kavonic of MST Marquee said this was a strong production result for Woodside.
Woodside reported revenue of $3.04 billion ($4.4 billion) in the December quarter, up from $3.48 billion ($4.97 billion) a year ago and beating consensus estimates of $2.84 billion ($4.06 billion).
But Woodside said it expected production to fall in 2026 as it would have to decommission its Pluto plant on the Burrup Peninsula to prepare it to process output from the Scarborough gas field.
Production of only 172 million to 186 million barrels is projected.
Woodside said the controversial Scarborough gas project off the coast of Western Australia is now 94 per cent complete, on schedule and on budget, but said the project would not meet its most optimistic schedule for starting operations.
Woodside said the $18.6 billion project will produce its first gas in the fourth quarter of 2026; this was the culmination of the previous program in the second half of the year.
A massive semi-submersible platform, known as a floating production unit, arrived at the site 375km off Karratha in mid-January after being slowly towed from China on a two-month journey.
Once operational, the Scarborough project will provide up to eight million tonnes of LNG per year for export, as well as up to 225 terajoules of gas per day for domestic consumption.
It was fiercely opposed by environmentalists due to its emissions impact, but survived court challenges.
Woodside also reiterated on Wednesday that it plans to appoint a new chief executive in the first quarter to replace Meg O’Neill, who resigned on Dec. 18 to take on a similar role at BP.
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