PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian oil and gas major Woodside has reported a 39% fall in after-tax net profit to $679-million for the six months ended June, as falling commodity prices impacted revenues.
This was compared with the $1.1-billion after-tax net profit recorded in the previous corresponding period.
Interim operating revenue was down by 28% year-on-year to $2.55-billion, mainly owing to the lower commodity prices and, to a lesser extent, the reduced sales volumes, which Woodside said arose from the planned turnaround work at the Pluto project.
Production for the six months under review was down 9.7% year-on-year to 42-million barrels of oil equivalent, with an unplanned outage at the North West Shelf operation also affecting output, along with net oilfield decline and increased cyclone impact across all of Woodside’s assets.
Despite the lower output, Woodside had maintained its full-year production target of between 86-million and 94-million barrels of oil equivalent.
CEO Peter Coleman said on Wednesday that the financial results reflected the impact of the fall in commodity prices over the last year.
“However, we have achieved some significant milestones this year, which are part of our strategy to transform the business. With the purchase of interests in Wheatstone, Balnaves and Kitimat, we have substantially increased our reserves and production capacity while de-risking our future growth.”
Woodside earlier this year inked a $2.75-billion transaction with Apache Corporation to acquire that company’s interest in the Wheatstone, Balnaves and Kitimat projects.
Meanwhile, Coleman pointed out that Woodside had also continued its focus on cost reduction opportunities and process efficiencies, with the company targeting $800-million in enduring benefits by the end of 2016.