AUSTRALIA

Woodside's revenue slips

WOODSIDE lifted production by 2.5% year on year to a record 87 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2013 but a lower proportion of liquids compared to gas sales led to a 7.2% fall to $A5.78 billion in revenue.

Woodside's revenue slips

But Woodside is expecting additional oil output in 2014 courtesy of the refurbished Vincent floating production, storage and offloading vessel, which restarted in November.

The absence of the FPSO was the main reason that December quarter production was 4.5% lower year on year to 23.2MMboe, although this result was 5.9% higher than the previous quarter, which had lower output from the Pluto LNG operations due to issues with the train and dehydrator beds.

Woodside's 2013 share of oil production from the North West Shelf Venture was roughly in line with the previous year at 3.48MMbbl, while its share of NWS condensate fell by 6.8% year on year to 6.89MMbbl.

Its slice of NWS LNG output was down 2% year on year to 2.41 million tonnes.

Pluto produced 3.61Mt of LNG for Woodside (90% owner) in 2013 - up 46% from 2012, while Woodside's stake of its condensate production was up 35% year on year to 3.6MMbbl.

In terms of the revenue breakdown across Woodside's producing assets, the biggest comparative hit came from the Vincent oil field, which had a 96.5% year-on-year fall to $24.9 million of revenue due to the FPSO setback.

The field generated $712.7 million of revenue in 2012.

On the development front, Woodside is expecting to start front-end engineering and design for the Browse FLNG project it shares with Shell in the second half of 2014.

It confirmed the NWSV's $2.5 billion Greater Western Flank phase 1 project remains on track for completion in early 2016.

FEED for the NWSV's Persephone gas field is continuing, with Woodside saying a final investment decision is planned for the second half of 2014.

While the Sunrise LNG project in the Timor Sea remains stalled due to a dispute between the Timor-Leste and Australian governments, Woodside is waiting for the Israeli government to finalise its tax plans for gas exports.

Woodside aims to make a final decision on its offer to buy a 30% stake of the Israel-based Leviathan LNG project during this half-year period.

The Western Australian petroleum producer also picked up two offshore New Zealand exploration blocks in the December quarter and moved to expand its exposure to Ireland's offshore Porcupine Basin through a deal to acquire a 60% stake in a block from Two Seas Oil & Gas.

Woodside shares were up 2.3% to $38.485 by 12.30pm AEDT.

Financial results for the 2013 full year will be released on February 19.

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