Woodside Eyes Pluto Plant Stake Sale ahead of $11B Scarborough Field Sanction

Sonali Paul
Thursday, February 18, 2021

Woodside Energy expects strong buyer interest in the sale of a share of a new production unit at its Pluto LNG plant, top executives said on Thursday, a precondition for a planned $11 billion expansion at its Scarborough gas and Pluto project.

The renewed push by Australia's biggest independent gas producer on the 8 million tonnes a year expansion project comes after last year's COVID-19 induced collapse in oil and gas prices drove its underlying annual profit down 58% to $447 million.

The result was well short of analysts' forecasts, which sent its shares down as much as 3.7% after the result was released on Thursday.

Woodside is looking to sell a 50% stake in the new production unit, or train, at the Pluto liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Western Australia, which will be fed with gas from the Scarborough project.

Selling a stake would be key to avoiding a capital raising or a credit downgrade.

The company suspended the sale process last year when oil prices slumped but is now optimistic about luring buyers.

"We're now sitting in a much more attractive pricing environment," Chief Financial Officer Sherry Duhe told analysts.



"The buyer appetite for infrastructure assets just continues to grow. And so we do believe that there'll be strong interest in that asset," she said.

Woodside's other growth project underway is the Sangomar oil development off Senegal, where its partner FAR Ltd has just received a tentative takeover offer from Russia's Lukoil.

Woodside last year pre-empted Lukoil from buying Cairn Energy's stake in Sangomar, as it was concerned the project could then fall foul of U.S. sanctions on Russia.

However, Chief Executive Peter Coleman said on Thursday there was no concern with Lukoil becoming a partner through a takeover of FAR, as FAR's stake in the Senegal project was below the 33% equity threshold for U.S. sanctions.

Woodside stuck to its forecast for fiscal 2021 output of 90-95 million barrels of oil equivalent, lower than its production in 2020.

On a statutory basis, Woodside posted an annual loss of $4.03 billion, its first loss in eighteen years, hit by $4.37 billion in asset write-downs it took at the half-year.

(Reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne; Additional reporting by Sameer Manekar and Shruti Sonal in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr and Richard Pullin)

Categories: Energy LNG Industry News Activity Gas Australia/NZ

Related Stories

China Starts Production at Major Oil Field in Bohai Sea

Dutch Contractor Completes Malaysia’s Largest 'Rig-to-Reef' Decom Project

China Rolls Out 17MW Floating Wind Turbine Prototype

CNOOC Finds Oil and Gas in South China Sea

Seatrium Makes First Turnkey FPSO Delivery to Petrobras

Baker Hughes, Petronas Team Up for Asia-Pacific Energy Resilience

Thailand's PTT to Buy LNG from Glenfarne's Alaska LNG Project

CDWE Wraps Up Pin Pile Installation Job for Taiwanese Offshore Wind Farm

Scarborough FPU's Topsides and Hull Come Together in Major Engineering Feat (Video)

Woodside to Shed Some Trinidad and Tobago Assets for $206M

Current News

Yinson, PTSC Get $600M Contract for Vietnam-Bound FSO

PTTEP Acquires Southeast Asia’s Offshore Block from Chevron’s Hess Unit for $450M

Valeura Energy, PTTEP Partner Up on Gulf of Thailand Blocks

Sapura Scoops Over $118M for Chevron, PTTEP Subsea Ops off Thailand

Pandion Energy Divests Interests in Three Norwegian Assets to Inpex

China Starts Production at Major Oil Field in Bohai Sea

Dutch Contractor Completes Malaysia’s Largest 'Rig-to-Reef' Decom Project

China Rolls Out 17MW Floating Wind Turbine Prototype

SBM Offshore’s Jaguar FPSO Enters Drydock in Singapore (Video)

EnQuest Picks Up Offshore Oil and Gas Block in Brunei

Subscribe for AOG Digital E‑News

AOG Digital E-News is the subsea industry's largest circulation and most authoritative ENews Service, delivered to your Email three times per week

https://accounts.newwavemedia.com