Australia's Woodside Petroleum FY net profit up 29 pct at record 1.4 bln aud

Australia's Woodside Petroleum FY net profit up 29 pct at record 1.4 bln aud

	Published : Wed, 21 Feb 2007 02:39 By : Agencies Print this Story

SYDNEY (XFN-ASIA) - Woodside Petroleum Ltd said its year to December net profit rose 29 pct to a record 1.425 bln aud as it benefited from higher oil and gas prices and increased production.

Woodside, 34 pct-owned by the Royal Dutch Shell Group, said net profit before one-off items rose 34.5 pct to 1.396 bln aud, beating analyst forecasts centered on a 1.36 bln aud underlying result.

The group said total production rose 13.8 pct from a year earlier to a record 67.9 mln barrels of oil equivalent (boe), while Woodside's average realized oil price rose 17.2 pct to 85.43 aud a barrel from 72.88 aud in 2005.

Annual revenue rose 38.7 pct from a year earlier to a record 3.810 bln aud.

Woodside said it is targeting a 6-15 pct rise in production to 72-78 mln boe in 2007.

The company said it also expects to make a final investment decision on its Pluto liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in northwest Australia by mid year.

It said it also will further appraise the Browse LNG fields off northern Australia through additional drilling and seismic data.

As well, Woodside expects to progress its proposed OceanWay project, aimed at delivering LNG into the Californian market, and other LNG opportunities to access North American and European markets.

The group said yesterday's vote by the Parliament of Timor-Leste in favor of ratifying an international unitization agreement and the treaty for Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea has provided greater legal and regulatory certainty for the development of its partly-owned Greater Sunrise gas fields.

'In order to progress Sunrise, we now need to focus on reaching agreement on the optimal development concept, marketing of the resource and conclusion of fiscal certainty arrangements,' Woodside said.

Woodside has a 33.4 pct stake in Greater Sunrise, ConocoPhillips has 30 pct and Royal Dutch/Shell 25.56 pct, with the balance held by Osaka Gas.

For the latest year, Woodside shareholders will receive a final dividend of 0.77 aud, up from the previous year's 0.58, taking the total annual dividend for 2006 to 1.26 aud from the 0.93 aud paid for 2005.

(1 usd = 1.27 aud)

bruce.hextall@xfn.com