Australia’s Woodside Bets Big on LNG Boom With 2032 Growth Plan

Australia’s Woodside Energy expects its sales of crude oil and natural gas to rise by some 50% by 2032, driven by growing demand for energy, especially in Asia.

Growing at an annual rate of 6%, sales could hit 300 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2032, chief executive Meg O’Neill said at the company’s Capital Markets Day today. As a result, net operating cash flow is also expected to increase by 6% annually to 2032, to $9 billion, from $5.8 billion in 2024.

Growth will be especially pronounced in LNG, where Woodside expects its capacity to increase from 19 million tons annually in 2024 to as much as 40 million tons in 2032.

“With global LNG demand forecast to grow 60% by 2035, Woodside’s increasing scale across the Atlantic and Pacific basins, combined with our marketing and trading business, optimises our capability to meet customer needs,” O’Neill said.

Woodside expects to start production from its Scarborough LNG facility in 2026, adding 8 million tons in annual production capacity to its total. Further, between 2029 and 2031, it plans to add another 16.5 million tons in capacity from the Louisiana LNG plant. The Australian major broke ground on the $17.5-billion Gulf Coast plant in September. Its capacity can ultimately be brought to 27.6 million tons annually.

In crude oil, Woodside expects to boost its production by 100,000 barrels daily with the startup of the Trion field, scheduled for 2028. Woodside owns 60% of the Trion field, with the rest held by Mexico’s Pemex—the field is in Mexican waters. The Trion field was discovered back in 2012 by the Mexican company. Pemex, however, did not have the resources to develop Trion on its own, and it took on Woodside as a partner in 2017. The project has a price tag of $7.2 billion.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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