PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Oil and gas major Woodside has reported an increase in sales revenue for the quarter ended June, as sales volumes increased despite a slight decrease in production.

Sales revenue for the second quarter was up 15% on the first quarter, reaching A$1.28-billion, with sales volumes up 9% on the previous quarter, to 28.1-million barrels of oil equivalent.

Production for the second quarter ended June was down 4% on the first quarter, to 22.7-million barrels of oil equivalent.

Woodside acting CEO Meg O’Neill said on Thursday that higher realised prices in the second quarter helped underpin a 15% rise in sales revenue compared with the first three months of the year.

“Revenue from oil sales during the period was higher than the first quarter supported by an above-market average realised price of A$75/bl, while revenue from liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales climbed 14%.

“Lower oil production due to scheduled maintenance activities and adverse weather impacts was partly offset by a strong quarterly performance at Pluto, which achieved 97% reliability,” O’Neill noted.

Work on our Sangomar field development phase, offshore Senegal, continued on schedule during the quarter and the project is now nearly one-third complete, she added, noting that in July, the first of two drilling vessels arrived in Senegal and the drilling campaign commenced for the project’s 23 wells.

“Following completion last week of our acquisition of FAR’s interest in the Rufisque offshore, Sangomar offshore and Sangomar deep offshore joint venture, we have commenced a formal process to sell down our equity in the project.”

Meanwhile, O’Neill noted that solid progress has been made towards the targeted final investment decision on Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 in the second half of this year.

“We have launched the formal sell-down process for up to 49% of our equity in Pluto Train 2. In parallel we have commenced a process to test the market for value-accretive opportunities to reduce our equity in the Scarborough resource.

“We are reviewing project cost estimates following extensive engagement with our contractors over recent months in the lead up to the investment decision.

“Further progress has been made in the implementation of our new energy strategy. We are investigating the supply of approximately 50 MW of solar energy to Pluto LNG from the proposed Woodside Power concept which has the potential to supply another 50 MW to Perdaman’s planned urea plant on the Burrup Peninsula.

“We also signed a heads of agreement with Japan’s IHI Corporation and Marubeni Corporation to investigate the production and export of green ammonia from renewable hydroelectric power at our proposed H2TAS facility.

“Initially, green ammonia would be produced at a small-scale hydrogen electrolysis plant which could then be scaled up to produce export volumes,” she said.