Beautiful Virgin Islands

Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025

The London stock market has a new giant and it's a business worth keeping an eye on

The London stock market has a new giant and it's a business worth keeping an eye on

In its native Australia, Woodside is a household name.

Overnight, a giant new company has arrived on the London stock market.

Shares of Woodside Energy, based in the western Australian city of Perth, were admitted to the main list and enjoyed a healthy first day premium, rising from the opening price of 1800p to as high as 1992.8p by lunchtime.

The company has a valuation of just under £36bn at the current price.

Woodside may not be a household name in the UK but it certainly is in Australia.

Founded in 1954 as an oil company and taking its name from the Victoria town near its leases, it was a pioneer in offshore oil exploration, setting world records for the depths to which it drilled below the south Australian seabed.


It continued as a specialist offshore oil and liquified natural gas producer for subsequent decades, during which, its partners Shell and BHP - the Australian mining giant - each became 40% shareholders.

Shell, in fact, tried to buy out other shareholders with a $10bn takeover bid that was blocked in 2001 by the Australian government. Both it and BHP subsequently sold down their shareholdings.

Fast forward to last year when BHP, which had previously offloaded its US shale assets, announced that it would be abandoning its dual-listing structure and moving its main stock listing to Australia - giving up its status as the biggest company in the FTSE 100 in the process.

The announcement was accompanied by news that BHP, which had itself sought to buy Woodside in the past, would be selling its remaining oil and gas assets to Woodside.

That deal completed on Wednesday last week and, in the process, created one of the world's biggest 10 independent energy companies by hydrocarbon production.

Meg O'Neill, Woodside's chief executive, said: "Today, Woodside begins its journey as a global company, becoming a bigger supplier of the energy that the world needs right now and will continue to demand in the future."

"The merger delivers a diverse portfolio of quality operating assets, plus a suite of growth opportunities across oil, gas and new energy that promises ongoing value for our shareholders.

"We believe the completion of the merger will enable Woodside to play a more significant role in the energy transition that is imperative as we respond to climate change while ensuring reliable and affordable supplies of energy to a growing and aspirational global population."

With shareholders of BHP emerging with 48% of the enlarged business, it means many UK investors will now have a shareholding in Woodside.


So, what are they getting?

As one might expect, Woodside's assets are heavily skewed to Australia, including Pluto, which takes gas from the offshore Pluto and Xena gas fields in western Australia and converts it to liquified natural gas (LNG), much of which is shipped on to customers in Japan.

It also owns just over one third of North West Shelf, just off the north west coast of the country, the giant natural gas project which is reckoned to be Australia's biggest ever resource project and where Woodside first partnered with Shell - a fellow shareholder - back in 1971.

The company's current biggest growth project is currently the Scarborough gas field off the coast of western Australia.

Further afield, Woodside also owns stakes in the Angostura oil and gas field off the coast of Trinidad, the Shenzi oil and gas field off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is also a minority shareholder in Mad Dog and Atlantis, oil and gas fields both operated by BP.

There is also an interest in the Sangomar oil field in Senegal which, according to Ms O'Neill, is a grade ideally suited to replacing the Russian crude that will shortly no longer be reaching European refineries.

Woodside is also in the process of building up non-oil and gas projects as, in common with the likes of BP and Shell, it seeks to pivot away from hydrocarbons.

It has invested in three separate hydrogen and ammonia projects in Perth, Tasmania and Oklahoma and in solar projects in California and in western Australia.


The rationale for the merger was that the enlarged Woodside group would be more geographically diverse, with 15% of its operations in the US Gulf of Mexico and 5% in Trinidad and Tobago and more diverse in terms of its products, with 29% of production coming from oil and condensate.

Essentially, though, this is an investment in the LNG sector. LNG still makes up 46% of combined production in the new group.

And that makes it a more interesting investment play than it was at the beginning of the year.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has spurred determination in many countries to wean themselves off Russian gas - and, for many of them, that means buying LNG, a commodity in which Australia is the world's biggest producer by volume, just ahead of Qatar and the United States.

Even before the war on Ukraine, global LNG demand was being predicted to more than double in volume between 2021 and 2050, reflecting declining gas production in Europe and parts of Asia.

Australia, thanks to its existing long-term supply deals with many Asian customers, was already thought likeliest to benefit from that increase in demand.

The question for investors is whether much of this is already priced in.

Woodside's Australian shares have already risen in value by 45% since the beginning of the year but much of the share price strength has been in the last couple of weeks and may reflect the fact that a number of Sydney investors who had previously 'shorted' Woodside stock - selling ahead of the big share issue made by the company for BHP's petroleum business - have recently been buying to close those positions.

So a lot of the value may already be in the Woodside share price. This will, nonetheless, be a business worth keeping an eye on.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
President Trump Visits Flood-Ravaged Texas, Praises Community Strength and First Responders
From Mystery to Meltdown, Crisis Within the Trump Administration: Epstein Files Ignite A Deepening Rift at the Highest Levels of Government Reveals Chaos, Leaks, and Growing MAGA Backlash
Trump Slams Putin Over War Death Toll, Teases Major Russia Announcement
Reparations argument crushed
Rainmaker CEO Says Cloud Seeding Paused Before Deadly Texas Floods
A 92-year-old woman, who felt she doesn't belong in a nursing home, escaped the death-camp by climbing a gate nearly 8 ft tall
French Journalist Acquitted in Controversial Case Involving Brigitte Macron
Elon Musk’s xAI Targets $200 Billion Valuation in New Fundraising Round
Kraft Heinz Considers Splitting Off Grocery Division Amid Strategic Review
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
EU Proposes New Tax on Large Companies to Boost Budget
Trump Imposes 35% Tariffs on Canadian Imports Amid Trade Tensions
Junior Doctors in the UK Prepare for Five-Day Strike Over Pay Disputes
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Biden’s Doctor Pleads the Fifth to Avoid Self-Incrimination on President’s Medical Fitness
Grok Chatbot Faces International Backlash for Antisemitic Content
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
NVIDIA Achieves Historic Milestone as First Company Valued at $4 Trillion
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as CEO of X After Two Years
US Imposes New Tariffs on Brazilian Exports Amid Political Tensions
Azerbaijan and Armenia are on the brink of a historic peace deal.
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
×