Woodside CEO turns up heat on Chevron, BHP over gas deals

AFR Article...

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Angela Macdonald-Smith

Senior Resources Writer
Aug 16, 2019 — 2.15pm

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La la land

Woodside is targeting final go-aheads for the $US11 billion Scarborough project and the $US20.5 billion Browse project in early and late 2020, respectively, but that timing is looking increasingly tight.

Mr Coleman voiced frustration that one partner is even still questioning the sequencing of processing gas at the two plants - something he said was broadly agreed two years ago - accusing them of being "in la la land".

The comments came as Woodside's December half 2019 target for a go-ahead on its $3 billion oil project in Senegal is also at risk because of an arbitration process initiated by junior partner FAR Ltd which he said is hindering project financing.

Mr Coleman put the onus on ASX-listed FAR to resolve the issue before the expiry in early December of a Production Sharing Contract for the field with the Senegal government.

"I'd flip it back into their court as to how they are going to actually solve the problems that they've caused here for the joint venture," he said.

But FAR chief executive Cath Norman said Mr Coleman was being "very disingenuous" in blaming the arbitration for the delay in financing, noting that engineering design and costs have also yet to be finalised.

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Katana Asset Management's Romano Sala Tenna said while the profit miss was explainable, the bigger question mark was over the partner talks and whether deals could be done over the next 6-9 months to go ahead on the projects.

"Mr Coleman made it clear there is a fair bit of argy-bargy going on," he said. "That does add an element of uncertainty around the timing of these various projects."

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