Woodside Energy Group Ltd (NYSE:WDS) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 26, 2024 6:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Marguerite O’Neill - CEO, MD & Executive Director
Graham Tiver - EVP & CFO
Conference Call Participants
James Redfern - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Nik Burns - Jarden Limited
Gordon Ramsay - RBC Capital Markets
Robert Koh - Morgan Stanley
Henry Meyer - Goldman Sachs Group
James Byrne - Citigroup
Dale Koenders - Barrenjoey
Adam Martin - E&P
Tom Allen - UBS
Mark Busuttil - JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Operator
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Woodside Energy Group Limited Full Year 2023 Results. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Meg O'Neill, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Marguerite O’Neill
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Woodside's 2023 full year results presentation. We are presenting 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. Today, I am joined on the call by our Chief Financial Officer, Graham Tiver. Together, we will provide an overview of our 2023 performance before opening up to Q&A. Please take the time to read the disclaimers, assumptions and other important information. I'd like to remind you that all dollar figures in today's presentation are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.
At Woodside, our strategy is to thrive through the energy transition. This is underpinned by three strategic priorities. And in 2023, we delivered on all three. The first is providing energy through a high-quality portfolio now and into the future. I'm pleased to report that in 2023, we delivered record full-year production with excellent LNG reliability. We also made significant progress on our major growth projects.
Our second strategic priority is creating and returning value through disciplined capital management. In 2023, our underlying net profit after tax was $3.3 billion. Based on this, our Board has determined a fully franked dividend of $0.60 per share. This represents a payout ratio of 80% of underlying NPAT, which is at the top end of our range. We also generated $0.6 billion of free cash flow. This is a significant achievement in a period of major capital expenditure and normalized prices.
And our third strategic priority is to conduct our business sustainably. I'm pleased to report we have further reduced our net equity Scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2023, and we are now 12.5% below our starting base. I'd like to highlight that we are launching our Climate Transition Action Plan today, and we will be hosting a special investor briefing about our climate plans on the 12th of March. Please take this as a sign of our continued commitment to action and transparency.