Top Aussie oil and gas firm Woodside lifts outlook after record Q3 production
SYDNEY, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Australia's top energy firm Woodside marginally raised its annual output expectations on Wednesday after record production for the quarter, reflecting a ramp-up at the Sangomar facility in Senegal and higher seasonal domestic gas demand.
The country's top independent oil and gas producer narrowed its full-year production estimate to a range of 189 to 195 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) from its prior forecast of 185 to 195 mmboe for the year.
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Chief Executive Meg O'Neill said the firm was seeing strong pricing signals from Asia and Europe, despite storage facilities in the latter approaching capacity.
"There are still price signals that would suggest that the market is wary of a cold winter and wanting to make sure that they have met their gas needs well in advance of that time period," she said in an interview.
Work on Woodside's major growth projects have been continuing at pace, the oil and gas producer said, with the Scarborough energy project now over 73% complete.
Woodside also posted a 21% sequential rise in revenue to $3.68 billion for the three months ended Sept. 30, beating a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of $3.29 billion and higher than the $3.03 billion in revenue posted in the previous quarter.
Shares in the firm rose as much as 1.5% to A$25.17, despite a drop of over 1% in the broader energy index .AXEJ.
Woodside's average realised price for the September quarter rose to $65 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe), higher than $62 per boe in the June quarter.
It produced 53.1 mmboe during the quarter, compared with 44.4 mmboe in the previous quarter.
"Stronger oil production and timing of cargoes saw total revenue beat ours and the Visible Alpha forecast by 6%," said analysts at Citi.
"We think Woodside will be in a position to provide better guidance at February."
Separately, the company also announced that it is delisting from the London Stock Exchange due to low trading volumes and to cut administration costs. Nov. 19 will be its last trading day.
Earlier this month, Woodside completed the acquisition of U.S. liquefied natural gas developer Tellurian, including its U.S. Gulf Coast LNG export project - now named Woodside Louisiana LNG - for $1.2 billion. The firm said it was targeting final investment decision readiness from the first quarter of 2025.
Woodside will release by year-end a study into the cost of developing the massive Greater Sunrise gas project, which has long been delayed by a dispute with joint owner Timor Leste about whether to base LNG processing in Timor or Australia.
O'Neill said the firm remained agnostic on the final location of the project's processing facilities.
"One of the challenges with Sunrise is given the size of the fields, the water depths, the distance from shore, the commerciality is pretty difficult for either concept, and so that's part of why we're doing this study."
(Reporting by Shivangi Lahiri and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru and Lewis Jackson in Sydney; Editing by Alan Barona and Christopher Cushing)