Woodside Offers $3.5B Bonds

Woodside Energy Group Ltd. has reached an agreement with financial backers for an underwritten debt instrument sale with a principal amount of $3.5 billion in the United States market.

The senior unsecured notes consist of $500 million maturing 2028 with a 4.9 percent interest, $1.25 billion due 2030 with a 5.4 percent coupon, $500 million due 2032 with a 5.7 percent interest and $1.25 billion due 2035 with a six percent interest.

The underwriters are Barclays Capital Inc., JP Morgan Securities LLC, BofA Securities Inc., Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and UBS Securities LLC, according to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The notes were to be issued by Woodside Finance Ltd., a subsidiary of the Australian oil and gas explorer and producer, and guaranteed by the parent.

“The funds will be used for general corporate purposes”, Woodside said in an online statement.

In the first quarter (Q1) Woodside entered into two $1.5-billion short-term liquidity facilities, drew $800 million from available liquidity debt facilities and repaid a $1-billion bond that matured in the period. It ended the quarter with a $7.3 billion liquidity, according to its quarterly report published April 23.

Woodside posted $3.32 billion in revenue for the January-March 2025 period, down five percent from the prior three-month period but up 13 percent against Q1 2024.

The sequential decrease was primarily due to lower production and weaker oil-linked prices. The year-on-year increase was due to added production from the Sangomar field offshore Senegal, which started up in Q2 2024, and higher gas hub-linked prices, Woodside said.

Woodside produced 49.1 million barrels of oil equivalent in the January-March 2025 period, down 4 percent quarter-on-quarter due to weather impacts at North West Shelf LNG and unplanned outages at Pluto LNG, both in Western Australia.  These were partially offset by higher production at the Atlantis and Shenzi oil and gas fields offshore Louisiana. By prior-year comparison, Q1 2025 total output rose 9 percent due to Sangomar production.

Woodside sold 50.2 MMboe in Q1 2025, down 7 percent quarter-on-quarter but up 10 percent year-on-year.

Late last month it earmarked $17.5 billion for the Louisiana LNG project. In the final investment decision (FID), New York City-based Stonepeak Partners LP agreed to shoulder $5.7 billion in exchange for a 40 percent stake.

The Gulf Coast project has an Energy Department permit to export a cumulative 1.42 trillion cubic feet a year of natural gas equivalent, or 27.6 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) according to Woodside, to both FTA and non-FTA countries.

The FID is for phase 1, which involves 3 liquefaction trains with a combined capacity of 16.5 MMtpa.

To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com