Ann: Woodside Reports 2013 Half-Year Profit of $8, page-5

re: Ann: Woodside Reports 2013 Half-Year Prof... Yeah the result was slightly under consensus. Nothing to worry about IMO and the div was better than I was expecting.

Bad news on the oil side of things with production issues meaning that even though volume is up in mmboe, value of that production is down due to being so gas heavy.

I actually thought it was not too bad, and the Leviathan news gave me some hope. I had pretty much written it off but it seems now the only real hold up is that they're waiting for this to go through the Israeli courts to confirm the decision that 50% of Leviathan gas can be exported, even though the total for all Israeli gas needs to be 60%. This is a good result and shows that the Israeli government is genuine about wanting WPL involved and trying to balance the conflicting arguments of securing investment vs securing domestic gas supplies.

Woodside is one of very, very few majors who can actually invest in Israel due to having no assets in the Middle East, and I'm sure that's not been lost on the Israelis.

Browse is looking more positive too, although I don't think even with FLNG it will be a Tier 1 asset in terms of rate of return. Even with all the gear sourced from cheaper Asian market and bypassing much of the stranglehold the unions have on the WA gas industry, it's still going to be a very expensive and technically challenging project in an environment of high CO2.

I'm glad the courts put what may be the final nail in the coffin of JPP, though. That was a dead end and the only thing keeping it going was Barnett's increasing desperation to squeeze every last drop out of the WA boom.