Woodside Energy Group Ltd (WDS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Meg O’Neill

Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining our 2022 full year results investor call. 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.

As you would have seen this morning, we released our annual report and full year results briefing pack to the market along with our sustainable development report and our climate report. I would encourage you all to read these reports together as they provide a complementary review of our business. I'm joined on the call with our Chief Financial Officer, Graham Tiver. Together we will provide an overview of our 2022 financial, operational and strategic performance before opening up the call to a Q&A 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 US dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Moving on to Slide 4, Woodside's strategy has delivered exceptional results in 2022. We transformed the company through the completion of the merger, which has provided increased scale and resilience and further strengthened the balance sheet. The addition of the heritage BHP assets and the expanded global portfolio coupled with strong operating performance and strong market conditions are key drivers in delivering record net profit after tax of $6.5 billion. We have backed out some one-off items, which Graham will touch on later to deliver an underlying profit of $5.2 billion. The Directors have determined a final dividend of $1.44 per share fully franked. This represents an 80% payout ratio of the second half underlying NPAT. The total full year dividend is $2.53 per share, meaning we are returning $4.8 billion to shareholders at a full year yield of over 10% based on Friday's closing share price. The outstanding performance from our business has set us up well to continue investment in oil, gas and new energy projects. We are investing in a range of commodities for the next wave of growth and are fiscally well-positioned for this period of higher capital investments. Our 2022 performance speaks to the strength of the business, our ability to deliver results today, deliver projects for tomorrow and return value to shareholders.