PERTH, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Australian Worldwide Exploration Ltd...

PERTH, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Australian Worldwide Exploration Ltd (AWE.AX)(AWE) will see production fall by about 10 percent in fiscal 2009 on weaker output from its main field, while the drop in oil prices will hurt its profits, the oil and gas company said on Wednesday.

"Production will be lower this year," AWE Chief Bruce Wood told Reuters in an interview. "Our prime asset, the Tui field, is declining."

The firm in October forecast output for the year to June 30, 2009 to be broadly steady from a record 9.9 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in the previous year.

"Profits will also be substantially lower because of lower production and the massive changes we've seen in oil prices," Wood said via telephone from Sydney.

AWE's net profit surged to A$264 million ($175 million) in fiscal 2008, from A$35.4 million the year before, as production from the Tui oilfield off the coast of New Zealand came onstream and thanks to soaring world oil prices.

Analysts on average expect AWE's 2009 operating profit to fall to A$217.8 million, according to a poll of eight brokerages by Reuters Estimates.

Wood declined to comment on analysts' forecasts.

Shares in AWE, which has a market capitalisation of around A$1.3 billion, have nearly halved in value since striking a peak of over A$4.71 a share last May, hit by the global financial crisis and a dive in oil prices.

The firm has production assets in the Perth Basin off Western Australia, the Bass Basin off Victoria and the Taranaki Basin off western New Zealand. ($1=1.51 Australian Dollar) (Reporting by Fayen Wong; Editing by James Thornhill)