Woodside Petroleum

Woodside Petroleum Limited

File:Woodside new.jpg
Type	Public
Traded as	ASX: WPL
Industry	Energy
Founded	26 July 1954 as Woodside (Lakes Entrance) Oil Co NL
Headquarters	Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Key people	Peter Coleman, CEO and MD
Products	Petroleum, LNG
Revenue	A$4.352 billion (2009, [1])
Net income	$1.824 billion A$ (2009)
Employees	~3000
Website	www.woodside.com.au

Woodside Petroleum Limited is an Australian petroleum exploration and production company. It is a public company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and has its headquarters in Perth, Western Australia.

History

Woodside was incorporated on 26 July 1954. It was originally named Woodside (Lakes Entrance) Oil Co NL and it was named after the small town of Woodside, Victoria. Woodside's early years were focussed on Victoria's Gippsland Basin. Switching to northern Western Australia in the early 1960s, Woodside joined up with Shell and Burmah Oil to form the original North West Shelf consortium. BHP later replaced Burmah, and with Shell, each became a 40% shareholder in Woodside. In the early 1990s both BHP and Shell agreed to sell down to 34% stakes each, before BHP sold out completely (for an average price of $3 per share, completing the sale in October 1994). On 9 November 2010, Shell sold approximately one-third of its 34% stake to insitutional investors at a share price of $42.23, reducing its overall stake in Woodside to 24%.

Management

On 30 May 2011 Peter Coleman succeeded Don Voelte as the company’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. He came to Woodside with 27 years industry experience with the ExxonMobil group, where he filled a variety of roles in Australia, Africa, Asia and the United States. Mr Coleman’s most recent position before joining Woodside was Vice President of the ExxonMobil Development Company, with responsibility for oil and gas developments around the world. This included ExxonMobil’s Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas project, and oil and gas developments in Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. Previous key roles with ExxonMobil included Vice President, Americas, responsible for leadership of all activities related to production in the United States, Canada and South America.

Operations

Exploration and development activities are ongoing in Australia and a number of regions outside of Australia including the Gulf of Mexico. Within Australia Woodside operates or is developing a number of liquefied natural gas projects. The company also operates the Enfield and Vincent oil fields offshore from Exmouth in Western Australia and the Laminaria-Corallina oil field offshore northern Australia.^{[citation needed]}

North West Shelf Project

Located 1260 km north of Perth, Western Australia and covering approximately 200 hectares, the Karratha Gas Plant includes five LNG processing trains, two domestic gas trains, six condensate stabilisation units, three LPG fractionation units as well as storage and loading facilities for LNG, LPG and condensate. One of the most advanced integrated systems in the world, the Karratha Gas Plant has the capacity to produce 12,000 tonnes a day of domestic gas, 52,000 tonnes a day of LNG, 4200 tonnesa day of LPG and 165,000 barrels a day of condensate. In 2008 annual LNG production capacity at the Karratha Gas Plant increased to 16.3 million tonnes with the start-up of a fifth, 4.4 million tonne-a-year LNG processing train.^{[citation needed]}

The North West Shelf Venture’s offshore production facilities include the North Rankin A, Goodwyn A and Angel platforms, and the oil producing Cossack Pioneer floating production storage and offloading facility (FPSO). Hydrocarbons from the offshore production facilities are transported to the Karratha Gas Plant for processing via two subsea pipelines, otherwise known as trunklines. Oil produced from the Cossack, Wanaea, Lambert and Hermes fields in the Carnarvon Basin is processed offshore on the Cossack Pioneer FPSO which currently produces approximately 40,000 barrels per day (6,400 m³/d) of oil.^{[citation needed]}

Woodside's joint venture partners in the North West Shelf Project are Shell, BHP Billiton, BP, Chevron and MIMI.^{[citation needed]}

Pluto LNG Project

Approved for development in July 2007, Pluto will process gas from the Pluto and Xena gas fields, located in the Carnarvon Basin about 190 km north-west of Karratha, Western Australia. The initial phase of the Pluto LNG Project comprises an offshore platform in 85m of water, connected to five subsea wells on the Pluto gas field. Gas will be piped in a 180km trunkline to the onshore facility, located between the North West Shelf Project and Dampier Port on the Burrup Peninsula. The total area of the Pluto leases for the onshore facility is about 200ha, of which the plant and associated infrastructure will cover about 80ha. Onshore infrastructure comprises a single LNG processing train with a forecast production capacity of 4.3 million tonnes a year. Storage and loading facilities at the plant include two LNG tanks with a combined capacity of 240,000 m³, three smaller condensate tanks and an LNG and condensate export jetty.^{[citation needed]}

Browse LNG Development

The Browse LNG Development concept is to commercialise the Browse Joint Venture’s three gas and condensate fields, Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa, 400km off the Kimberley coast. Gas and liquids from these fields will be brought to an onshore LNG plant at the Western Australian Government’s Browse LNG Precinct, 60 km north of Broome. Woodside's joint venture partners in Browse are Shell, BHP Billiton, BP and Chevron.^{[citation needed]}

Sunrise LNG Development

The Greater Sunrise gas development lies in the Timor Sea north of Australia and includes the Sunrise and Troubadour fields, which were discovered in 1974. Greater Sunrise is located about 450 km north-west of Darwin and 150 km south-east of Timor-Leste. Approximately 80% of the fields lie within Australian waters, with the remainder in jointly administered waters. The Greater Sunrise fields have a total contingent dry gas resource of 5.13 Tcf and 225.9 MMbbls of condensate. The Sunrise JV participants are Woodside (operator) (33.4%), ConocoPhillips (30%), Shell (26.6%) and Osaka Gas (10%).

In April 2010 Shell’s floating liquefied natural gas technology was selected by the Sunrise Joint Venture for developing the Greater Sunrise gas fields in the Timor Sea. The Woodside-operated JV is now seeking to engage regulators on the concept selection process.

Criticism

In February 2006, the Mauritanian government led by Ely Ould Mohamed Vall denounced amendments to an oil contract made by former authoritarian leader Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya with Woodside Petroleum. In 2004, Woodside had agreed to invest US$ 600 million in developing Mauritania's Chinguetti offshore oil project. The controversial amendments, which Mauritanian authorities declared had been signed "outside the legal framework of normal practice, to the great detriment of our country", could cost Mauritania up to $200 million a year, according to BBC News. The Australian Federal Police in June 2006 were investigating Woodside for allegations of bribery and corruption in Mauritania according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The AFP officially cleared the company of any wrongdoing in May 2008.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006-2007, as part of the Pluto LNG project, Woodside faced opposition over plans to build an onshore processing plant on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, as the site is home to significant petroglyphs up to 30,000 years old.

It has been suggested that intense lobbying by Woodside Petroleum contributed to the coalition Howard government's initial decision against emissions trading in August 2000. The company also opposed the Rudd Labor government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in 2009.

Woodside is among six companies accused of making deceptive public statements in an attempt to get free carbon permits. The Australian Conservation Foundation says the companies exaggerated in public, but told a different story to their shareholders and investors. In June 2009, the ACF lodged an official complaint with the Federal consumer affairs watchdog asking that the matter be investigated. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took no action against the companies.

External links

• Corporate Website

af:Woodside Petroleum