Woodside pushing ahead on Browse

Woodside Petroleum is priming itself to begin design work on its $30 billion Browse LNG project by the end of the year, and has reiterated its intention for a final decision on construction during the first half of 2021.

The development of Browse has been under a cloud, as Woodside has been stuck in negotiations with its joint venture partners on the project in relation to terms for processing gas from the plant.

Following the release of the company's third-quarter results, Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman said Browse, located in the North West Shelf in Western Australia, should be ready for preliminary engineering work this quarter.

“We are progressing the negotiation for the Browse gas processing agreement and the Browse joint venture remains aligned on being ready to commence front-end engineering design in Q4 2019,” he said.

Woodside is the operator of Browse with a 30.6 per cent stake, followed by Shell and BP Australia, which have shares in the project of 27 per cent and 17.33 per cent, respectively.

A 50-50 joint venture between Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui & Co have a 14.4 per cent stake, and PetroChina has a 10.67 per cent holding.

Woodside’s third-quarter output rose 44 per cent on the previous quarter to 24.9 million barrels of oil equivalent, underpinned by the start-up of the Greater Enfield oil project off WA.

Its sales revenue was $US1.16 billion ($A1.72 billion), slightly below a UBS estimate of $US1.17 billion, as the average realised price for its products was $US50 per barrel of oil equivalent, down $5 from the same time last year.

Shares in Woodside were up 0.4 per cent to trade at $32.03 at 12.10pm AEST.