Top year for Woodside

Woodside, Australia’s largest publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production company was ranked number three in this year’s WA Business News most successful corporate brands survey.

The company, with a market capitalisation of more than $A13 billion (as at December 2004), also ranked at 24 in the 2004 brand survey category of WA’s oldest successful brands, and owes much of its recent strong corporate brand performance to industry projects and developments.

Among the factors contributing to Woodside’s strong brand performance were:

• the share price rising from $A16.86 on July 1 2004 to $A31.92 this week;

• a record profit of $A1.08 billion;

• the North West Shelf venture $A2.4 billion LNG train 4 and second truckline from North Rankin to the onshore gas plant starting production;

• work starting on the North West Shelf venture’s $A2 billion LNG train 5 and second LNG loading terminal;

• the A$1.1 billion Otway natural gas project off the Victorian coast is on target to produce its first gas next year;

• the newest oilfield development off WA, Enfield, a $1.5 billion project using a newly constructed floating production storage and offloading vessel, is also on track;

• at the end of 2005, the $US625 million Chinguetti oil project off the coast of Mauritania in West Africa will produce first oil; and

• a major exploration program started in Libya.

Woodside also has interests in the Neptune oil and gas project in the Gulf of Mexico and this is expected to come on line in 2007.

With interests in Australia, Africa, the US and the Middle East, major customer centres in Japan, South Korea, China and Singapore, and offices in the UK, Japan, South Korea, Libya, the US and Mauritania (and one to open in China this year), Woodside is a global powerhouse.

The company sells liquefied natural gas, natural gas, crude oil, condensate and liquid petroleum gas around the world. Woodside produces nearly 60 million barrels of oil equivalent a year.

The company was formed in 1954 and has its headquarters in Perth and has more than 2,500 staff in WA.