Woodside to review 2015 spending

Australian independent Woodside Petroleum is revising its investment spending for this year as it assesses the impact of global oil prices nearly halving since last year's final quarter.

Woodside said today it will provide an outlook for its future spending next month when it presents its 2014 results "in light of the current challenging market conditions, which has seen crude pricing decrease from over $100/bl in September 2014 to around $55/bl at the beginning of January". Woodside capital expenditure for 2014 totalled $685.5mn, up by 17pc on 2013.

Towards the end of last year the company went against the trend of many oil firms backing away from investment because of price uncertainty and high costs. It bought US independent Apache's Kitimat and Wheatstone LNG assets for $2.75bn. It also added to its Canadian and Atlantic exploration assets, finalising a deal with BP to farm into blocks offshore Nova Scotia. Woodside has been stepping up exploration activities in the Atlantic, but has mostly focused on Africa. The company is looking at potential offshore exploration opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa and the Atlantic coastline from Nigeria up to Morocco. It has already acquired exploration assets in Gabon and Morocco.

Woodside is targeting production of 230,000-249,000 b/d of oil equivalent (boe/d) in 2015, having recorded a 9.3pc rise in output last year from a year earlier to 260,000 boe/d. Production for the final quarter of 2014 was 255,000 boe/d, up by 1pc on a year earlier but down by 7pc against the July-September quarter. The company's sales revenue for 2014 was around $7bn, 22.5pc higher than 2013.

rjd/kaf

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