Woodside keeps it slow and steady during day of chaotic results

On a big day for reporting season, oil and gas giant Woodside produced few surprises in its first half results.

EBITDA was up 5% and interim dividend beat forecasts, but with net profit after tax (NPAT) down 32%, it had sold off around 2.6% by Thursday afternoon.

We spoke to Suhas Nayak, portfolio manager at Allan Gray, to dive deeper into WDS's results and where it goes next. 

Woodside Energy Group (ASX: WDS) 1H25 key results

• EBITDA up 5% to $4.6bn
• Net profit after tax down 32% to $1.3bn, underlying NPAT of $1.2bn (underlying in-line with ests)
• Production up 11% to 548Mboe/day, with total production of 99.2MMboe vs. 99.2MMboe ests (in-line)
• Unit production cost down 7% to $7.7 per boe
• Interim dividend down 23% to 53 cps vs. 51 cps ests (3.9% beat)

What was the key takeaway from this result in one sentence?

Woodside demonstrated continued good operational performance in a period of pretty heavy spending on new projects. 

Were there any surprises in this result that you think investors need to be aware of?

The net debt figure seems to have been a bit higher than people were expecting. 

There are continued surprises around abandonment expenses or restoration expenses, mostly to the downside, that have occurred over the last little while and continued into this period. 

Would you buy, hold or sell WDS off the back of this result?

Rating: 4.5

There are many sectors and companies within those sectors that trade at very elevated multiples with not a lot of growth to back those multiples up. We're quite cautious around the index.