The Woodside Petroleum Ltd (ASX: WPL) share price has fallen more than 5% in early trade this morning following the release of its 1H19 results.
About Woodside Petroleum
Woodside Petroleum is Australia’s largest independent oil and gas company with a global portfolio. It is an explorer, developer, producer and supplier of energy. The company has been operating for over 60 years and is now Australia’s leading LNG producer. Some of its current development projects are in Senegal (SNE), Myanmar, Canada (Kitimat) and Timor-Leste / Australia (Sunrise).
Here Are The Five Key Points
- Free cash flow increased by 123% to $869 million
- Operating revenue was $2,260 million, down from $2,388 million in 1H18
- EBITDA declined by 14.9% to $1,462 million (the video below explains EBITDA)
- Net profit after tax was US$419 million, down from $541 million in 1H18
- An interim dividend of US 36 cents per share was declared
Analyst Estimates
Woodside missed analyst estimates by some margin with its NPAT result of US$419 million. Bloomberg analyst estimates were US$604 million, around 44% higher than the actual result.
Management Commentary
Woodside CEO Peter Coleman said the low first half NPAT result was due to several factors.
“First half NPAT was lower compared to the corresponding period due to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Veronica, the planned maintenance at Pluto LNG, and the Ngujima-Yin floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility being offline for refurbishment in Singapore ahead of its restart at Greater Enfield,” he said.
“Our other base businesses performed strongly in the first half, with the North West Shelf and Wheatstone recording solid production.”
Dividend
The declared interim dividend of US 36 cents per share is down on last year’s 53 cps dividend and 2017’s 49 cps dividend.
The record date is 27th August and the dividend will be paid 20th September 2019.
Is Woodside A Buy?
Woodside shares fell more than 5% in early trade today and are down around 5% over the last six months. The question that an investor has to ask is whether the outages and natural disasters that affected the results are one-off events or whether they are likely to occur again.
For me, I think this business is too cyclical and dependent on commodity prices. I’d rather invest in one of the businesses in the free report below.
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Disclosure: At the time of writing, Max does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned.
