Ann: Fourth Quarter 2022 Report, page-35

Hey @occam - your example of a company in development phase hedging future anticipated production is pertinent to all companies in that phase. Hedging at that time is mostly to protect the lenders, not the company.
One consequence (in the not unusual situation of the development phase going over time and budget) is that if the product price goes up, the company is stuffed (and not in the position that an unhedged company would be of then having good extra revenue to pay the added costs). Companies can be critically damaged or destroyed in this way.
My severely pained experience was with Highlands Gold/Pacific over a decade ago when hedging against the future gold production of the very rich grade Kainantu PNG gold mine (somewhat over cost and time, but with booming gold price) nearly killed the company which was forced to sell the in-development mine for a pittance.
The experience and the principle is an important one to remember.

As for Woodside, when forward selling is done for a proportion of production that it certain, then that IMO is usually good risk management as a price-taker.
However, I still hate it when profits are lower due to hedging losses.