Woodside increases production in third quarter but sales slide

Australia's Woodside announced its Q3 2020 results that saw it deliver production of 25.3 MMboe and sales revenue fell to $699 million.

CEO Peter Coleman stated: ""As expected, sales revenue in the third quarter was impacted by lower realised LNG prices, reflecting the oil price lag in many of our contracts. Pricing in the fourth quarter and in Q1 2021 is expected to be stronger given the improvement in oil price in recent months. In particular, I am encouraged by the strengthening Asian LNG spot price, which is now above $6.50/MMBtu for December deliveries.”

Woodside's year-to-date production of 75.4 MMboe was an increase of 18 per cent compared with the first three quarters of 2019.

The firm said that it continued to implement appropriate responses to the combined impact of COVID-19 and lower commodity prices. It conducted an organisational review of the company’s future workforce requirements, resulting in an approximately 8 per cent reduction in the size of our direct employee workforce.

Highlights for the quarter included strong operating performance of its LNG facilities with high reliability at Pluto. Woodside also completed planned maintenance at Karratha Gas Plant’s Train 3, with the facility returning to full operating rates. And in terms of developments, Woodside increased our stake in the Sangomar Field Development offshore Senegal and project execution activities continued to plan. In Western Australia, we completed drilling activity for Pyxis Hub and Julimar-Brunello Phase 2.

Coleman added: "“Woodside is increasing its stake in the Sangomar Field Development offshore Senegal and has executed a sale and purchase agreement with Capricorn Senegal Limited for its entire participating interest. The additional interest is expected to increase 2P reserves by approximately 68 MMboe. Delivery of project execution activities continued to plan.Processing of new 3D seismic data of the Sangomar field is complete and early interpretation indicates significant seismic resolution improvement. This improved data quality provides additional confidence in the Phase 1 development and is likely to assist in derisking future development phases."