Australia’s largest independent oil and gas company, Woodside Petroleum has released 2018 production guidance after registering tremendous development.
“Our base business has performed strongly, with Pluto LNG exceeding 99% reliability. Wheatstone LNG Train 1 has achieved above nameplate production rates, and Train 2 is ramping up as planned,” Woodside’s CEO Peter Coleman said.
Pluto Liquefied natural gas(LNG) daily average production during the April-June period was 14,138 mt, which is up 10% year on year and 4% quarter on quarter.
Accordingly, it realised an annualized rate of 5.16 million mt compared with 4.69 million mt a year earlier, 4.96 million mt in the January-March quarter, which breached its nameplate capacity of 4.9 million mt by 5%.
The Wheatstone LNG project, which had the first of its two 4.45 million mt/year capacity trains come online in October last year, operated at a rate of 14,215 mt/day in the quarter ended June, up from 11,058 mt in the January-March period, the company said. That translated to an annualized rate of 5.19 million mt for the three months to June, up from 4.04 million mt in the quarter ending March.
Woodside is now expecting LNG production of 69-72 MMboe, revised upward from 69-71 MMboe and liquids, which includes oil and condensate, of 12-13 MMboe, up from 10-12 MMboe, with pipeline and domestic gas and LPG making up the rest, it said.
Actual LNG production from Woodside in the first six months of this year stood at 34.3 MMboe, compared with a total of 61.7 MMboe in 2017, and liquids of 6.7 MMboe against last year’s total of 14.8 MMboe, Woodside said.
RBC Capital Markets’ analyst Ben Wilson said: “A solid result from Woodside, with most items in line with our forecasts, underlying the stability of the base operating business. The small increase in calendar year 2018 production guidance is consistent with our pre-existing forecast of 89 MMboe”.
Woodside is also tipping further growth in the future on the back of its Scarborough project.
“During the first half we delivered positive free cash flow, while acquiring additional equity in the Scarborough gas resource and investing to deliver the near-term growth which will contribute to targeted production of approximately 100 MMboe in 2020,” Coleman said.
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