Woodside Petroleum Reports 2015 Second Quarter Results

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (ASX:WPL) announced its second quarter financial results for the period ended June 30, which showed a 7.8 percent decrease in production. The company said the reason behind the decrease was due to lower LNG volumes at Pluto and North West Shelf.
Highlights:

• Browse entered front-end engineering and design (FEED), a key milestone in preparing for a final investment decision (FID), targeted for 2H 2016.
• The transactions to acquire interests in Wheatstone LNG, Kitimat LNG and Balnaves oil projects successfully completed
• The agreement to purchase LNG from Corpus Christi Liquefaction LLC became unconditional when a positive FID was taken on 13 May.
• The Pyxis-1 exploration well in production licence WA-34-L intersected approximately 18.5 metres of net gas, which will provide additional gas for future tie-back to Pluto.
• The planned Pluto turnaround completed 10 days ahead of plan.
• Subsequent to the end of the quarter, Woodside executed an unsecured US$1.0 billion syndicated loan facility. The syndicated loan facility comprises two equal tranches with tenors of three and five years at interest rates of USD LIBOR plus 0.9% and USD LIBOR plus 1.15% respectively.

Key production and sales points:

Relative to previous quarter (Q1 2015)

• Production volumes decreased 7.8% predominantly due to lower LNG volumes at Pluto associated with a planned turnaround and lower LNG volumes at North West Shelf (NWS) associated with an unplanned outage. This was partially offset by increased oil volumes predominantly associated with new oil production from Balnaves.
• Sales volumes decreased 18.4% due to lower LNG production and associated condensate production, as well as the timing of shipments.
• Sales revenue for the quarter was 36.2% lower reflecting lower LNG and condensate sales volumes and lower realised prices. LNG revenue is largely indexed to an approximate four-month lagged Japanese Custom Cleared (JCC) price, which averaged ~US$64/bbl for the quarter, 35% below the ~US$99/bbl average price of the previous quarter.

Relative to corresponding period (Q2 2014)

• Production volumes decreased 14.5% predominantly due to lower LNG production associated with a planned turnaround at Pluto.
• Sales volumes decreased 9.3% predominantly due to lower LNG volumes.
• Sales revenue for the quarter decreased 46.5% predominantly due to lower oil prices and lower sales.

Click here to read the full Woodside Petroleum Ltd (ASX:WPL) press release.