Peter Coleman has confirmed Woodside’s appetite to pre-empt a new partner buying Chevron’s stake in the North West Shelf venture if required.

Mr Coleman said he saw it as “unlikely” another oil and gas company would buy into the venture and the transition of the venture to a “toll processing” plant that processes external gas made an infrastructure investor the likely new partner.
He expected a lot of “tyre-kickers” to put up their hand and want to have a look at the asset but said Chevron would likely run a very orderly process and only let those that are serious into the data room.
However, some smaller companies with undeveloped gas fields in WA, including Strike Energy, are also potentially interested to see if a consortium could be put together to buy Chevron’s stake.
Credit Suisse energy analyst Saul Kavonic pointed to concerns in the market that Woodside may need to raise equity to fund both the acquisition of Chevron’s stake, and go ahead with its Scarborough gas project. Mr Coleman didn’t rule out a raising but indicated such an acquisition could be structured to avoid it.
“There are also ways of cutting the acquisition up,” he said. “The acquisition itself may have other elements to it that kind of help with respect to the potential for an equity raising.”
He said Woodside had long been working on potential scenarios and is “ready” for the looming restructuring of the venture.
Chevron’s flagged exit has also called into question Woodside’s plan to develop its remote WA gas field Scarborough through an expansion of its Pluto LNG plant, or whether it now makes more sense to process that gas through the NW Shelf venture.
Mr Coleman said it was too early to say but signalled that the COVID-19-spurred price slump and the delay in the project meant “everything is on the table again” to check that what made sense three years ago was still a good plan.
Meanwhile, referring to a media report citing delays in Senegal oil projects of up to two years, Mr Coleman said that didn’t apply to Woodside’s Sangomar project which would still start up in 2023.
Quizzed on his own future at Woodside, where he has been CEO for nine years, Mr Coleman signalled he would likely remain for another two to three years to put in place the next leg of LNG growth, oversee the change in ownership at the North West Shelf and put “material” momentum behind Woodside’s transition to cleaner energy.
“If I’m sitting here in five years’ time I’ve probably been here too long,” he said.
Mr Coleman added Woodside advised staff on Monday about some senior executive changes, including the retirement of the head of LNG marketing, Reinhardt Matisons, which would see gas marketing put under the responsibility of the head of development, Meg O’Neill. The head of corporate affairs and legal is also leaving the company.