Woodside's output and revenue slip

Woodside Petroleum's production dropped in the June quarter following outages at facilities and lower share of pipeline gas.

Oil and gas giant Woodside Petroleum's production dropped 6.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 due to outages at some of its facilities and a lower share of pipeline gas from the North West Shelf.

The company produced 20.7 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) in the three months to June 30, down from 22.2 MMboe a year earlier.

Sales revenue rose 5.1 per cent to $US867 million in the quarter, as higher realised prices offset a four per cent decline in sales volume.

Royal Bank of Canada analyst Ben Wilson said Woodside's production modestly missed expectations, and the fall was spread among a number of the company's assets.

Woodside said there was a temporary unplanned outage at its Karratha gas plant, and a scheduled four day turnaround at its Pluto liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia.

The company said it had progressed plans to expand Pluto, with a trial run completed during the June quarter.

"Results of the cold high-rate trial confirmed there is additional available pre-treatment capacity which may be utilised through expansion," it said.

Chief executive Peter Coleman said the company also achieved a major milestone after joint venture partners at the North West Shelf project agreed to process third party gas from the Karratha gas plant.

That is expected to pave the way for the development of the offshore Browse gas fields, which had been under a cloud since the company and its partners there indefinitely shelved plans for a $50 billion offshore floating LNG project in March 2016.

Woodside in March outlined its plans to boost cash flow through expansion of existing projects over the next few years and ruled out investment in any major new projects in the near term.

Its shares were up 27 cents, or 0.9 per cent, at $30.00 at 1410 AEST.


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Source: AAP



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