Alright I've gathered a bit more information: all costs are in...

Alright I've gathered a bit more information: all costs are in US millions as far as I can tell.

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
1		WPL	STO
2	Revenue	3908	3107
3	EBITDA	2854	1428
4	Impairment	-	-938
5	Impairment tax savings	-	235
6	NPAT	1024	-360
7	Underlying NPAT	1024	336

Big differences here. But NPAT and most of these standard measurements are a bit meaningless in explaining company performance - depreciation and amortisation a large portion of cash generation / reduction in taxes. So lets look at where money is spent.

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
1		WPL	STO
2	Sustaing CAPEX	320	504
3	3rd party gas	-	696
4	Net finance costs	94	270
5	Growth investments	1280	114
6	Free cash flow	832	618

Sustaining CapEX isn't great as it doesn't grow the business - only keeps facilities chugging along, likewise buying 3rd party gas helps explain why STO has simular revenue but lower EBITDA. Growth investments (exploration, new developments and M&A) is where I like to see a company able to push the bulk of its money spent along with dividends / debt reduction. Also note that WPL's net finance costs are a lot lower than STOs are.

Even here it's not a fair comparison. As a very simplified comparison - lets remove the tax impact of the impairment from STO's bottom line. This shows just how sound the business were in 2017 oil price environment.

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
1		WPL	STO
2	Growth investments	1280	114
3	Free cash flow	832	618
4	Impairment tax savings	-	-235
5	Underlying profitability in 2017	2112	497

Some big differences here - but lets also look at some profitability comparisons

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
1		WPL	STO
2	Underlying profitability in 2017	2112	497
3	Revenue	3908	3107
4	EBITDA	2854	1428
5	Ratio: Revenue to underlying profit	54%	16%
6	Ratio: EBITDA to underlying profit[/B]	74%	35%

So in other words the underlying profitability of Woodsides assets as a proportion of revenue or EBITDA is significantly higher. Looking at revenue alone is very misleading.

Note: Sustaining CapEX over a single year is not a perfect measure. Part of WPL's future Browse investment should be viewed as this (WPL does hold more equity in browse than the NWS). Likewise STO also has ageing facilitates which will need investment down the track. The scary part of STO's sustaining CapEX is how much is needed to keep GLNG full(ish) and how little room STO actually has to increase that sustaining CapEX number without drawing more debt - at least at 2017 prices. WPL has a lot more space to move should it need irrespective of oil price environment and will generate plenty of growth / cash under any price environment.

DYOR etc.