Shares in oil and gas giant Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL) are up 1.35% to $30.80 today after the company released an uplifting quarterly update.
Sales revenue grew to US$1.17 billion, up 18% from the previous quarter and 30% from the March 2017 quarter, thanks to a combination of oil price and volume increases. Production grew to 22.2 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) – up from 21.4 million boe in the previous corresponding period and ahead of analyst forecasts – while the average realised price grew from US$44per boe to US$51 per boe.
The highlight of the quarter is the 120,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced at the Wheatstone project in Western Australia, well above the disappointing 36,000 tonnes obtained in the December 2017 quarter, when production at Wheatstone began.
Woodside owns a 13% interest in the project, which is one of the largest LNG deposits in the Asia-Pacific region and is controlled by Chevron. Wheatstone's second production unit will soon become operational.
In March, Woodside completed a $2.5 billion equity raising to fund the acquisition of a controlling stake in the Scarborough offshore gas field in Western Australia, which the company intends to develop cheaply in connection with its nearby Pluto LNG onshore processing facility.
