Woodside Energy Group Ltd (WDS) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2022

August 29, 2022 7:30 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Woodside Energy, WDS, Half Year 2022 Results. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Meg O’Neill, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Please go ahead.

Meg O’Neill

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our 2022 half year results investor call. It’s a pleasure to be talking with you all again. We are presenting the results today from Sydney. And I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. I also extend my respect to all other Aboriginal nations, the future generations and their continued connection to country.

This morning, we published our half year report and results briefing pack for release to the Australian, New York and London Stock Exchanges. I am joined on this call by our Chief Financial Officer, Graham Tiver. This is the first set of financial results released since the merger with BHP’s Petroleum business completed in June. It was 12 months ago that we announced our intentions for the merger, the night before our 2021 half year results. I am thrilled to be here now in the knowledge we did what we said we would and that the combined business is delivering the benefits we expected. Today’s Woodside Energy is a significant player in the global energy sector.

Today, I will provide an overview of the company’s performance in the past 6 months, Graham will then describe the financial results and I will close the presentation before opening the question-and-answer session. Please take the time to read the disclaimers, assumptions and other important information on Slides 2 and 3. I’d like to remind you that all dollar figures in today’s presentation are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Starting with Slide 4, the first half of 2022 has been extraordinary. Completing the merger transformed the company by providing scale, resilience and further strengthening the balance sheet. We sold down a 49% stake of Pluto Train 2, which reduces our further – our future capital expenditure for the strategic investments and the execution of our major and minor projects is continuing well. We are executing on our strategy of thriving through the energy transition and progressing a number of opportunities to invest in lower carbon products and services.