Woodside Posts 35% Jump in Realised Price as Second-Quarter Volumes Fall 8%
Higher prices drove a $4.19 billion quarterly revenue result, but a persistent production slide at North West Shelf limits how far price can carry the story.
Woodside Energy Group reported $4.19 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 28 percent on the second quarter of 2025, on a realised price of $85 per barrel of oil equivalent — a 35 percent sequential gain the company attributed to higher prices across its portfolio.4
Revenue rose while volumes fell. Total production came in at 528 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day, down 8 percent on the previous quarter and 12 percent on the same quarter a year earlier, according to Woodside's quarterly report. Liquids output of 227 thousand barrels per day was up 4 percent sequentially but down 5 percent year on year.3 For traders in the Australian LNG complex, the divergence matters: price is doing the heavy lifting that barrels cannot.
The volume decline reflects more than routine maintenance. EnergyQuest warned in January 2022 that Australia may have hit its LNG peak just as other nations were expanding export capacity, singling out North West Shelf as a project already in continued decline.5 Four years on, the quarterly numbers show that trajectory intact.
Woodside is spending to reverse it. Capital expenditure and acquisitions came in at $784 million for the quarter, down 41 percent on the prior three months but up 4 percent on the same period a year earlier, with first-half spend of $2.107 billion against $2.558 billion in the year-earlier half.3 The sequential drop reflects the lumpy nature of LNG project spending.
Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 remain the centrepiece of the growth case. The project covers development of the Scarborough field off Karratha, construction of a second gas processing train at Pluto LNG rated at 5 million metric tons per annum, and modifications to Pluto Train 1.2 Woodside has said extended Interconnector arrangements provide for processing approximately 2.8 million tonnes — equivalent to 22.6 million barrels of oil equivalent — of additional LNG in aggregate, plus roughly 22.9 petajoules of additional gas for the Western Australian domestic market.2
That domestic market is not marginal. Woodside produced 90.3 petajoules of gas in Western Australia in 2025, supplying about 21 percent of the state's domestic gas, according to the company.2 Western Australian domestic prices and Platts JKM LNG front-month are connected only through the volumes Woodside chooses to divert to export, not through a single arbitrage mechanism. Woodside's agreement with Alcoa to supply 31.1 petajoules of Western Australian natural gas from 2027 to 2030 — feeding Alcoa's state refineries — locks in domestic commitments and reduces that optionality.2
Platts JKM LNG front-month was trading at $26.75 per MMBtu on September 18, 2026, according to live market data. At that level, the incentive to maximise export volumes is substantial. But the quarterly production decline shows Woodside cannot simply respond to price signals. Reservoir decline at North West Shelf and maintenance at other assets set a ceiling that price alone cannot lift.
The gap that Australian volumes leave open is one Cheniere Energy is positioned to fill. Cheniere published its 2025 Corporate Responsibility Report on August 12, 2026, marking a decade since its first LNG cargo; the company said nearly 5,000 export cargoes had shipped over that period from its Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi facilities, which together operate roughly 55 million metric tons per annum of combined liquefaction capacity.6 Cheniere credited those exports with reshaping global LNG trade dynamics by providing liquidity and flexibility.6 When Australian output slips, US Gulf volumes absorb the buyer demand.
ConocoPhillips is building toward a similar position over a longer horizon. The company has said it is working toward a $7 billion improvement in free cash flow by 2029, driven by cost reduction, LNG projects and the Willow project in Alaska, with management saying those projects could expand its production platform by nearly 20 percent over time.1 ConocoPhillips is not competing directly with Woodside in the same basins. It is competing for the same Asian buyers over the next decade.
For the Woodside bulls, the Scarborough timeline is the number to watch. A 28 percent revenue increase built on price rather than volume is sustainable only until the realised price cycle turns. North West Shelf decline is not a problem that a stronger Platts JKM LNG front-month fixes. Whether Woodside lifts full-year production guidance or leaves the volume trend standing — and whether Pluto Train 2 advances on schedule — are the two signals that tell you whether this is a price story or the start of something longer.2,3