Woodside Lifts Q2 Revenue 28 Percent on LNG Price Surge as Gas Volumes Slide
A 35 percent jump in Woodside's average realized price masked a 16 percent production decline and put Louisiana LNG's development pace in focus.
Woodside Energy Group posted $4.19 billion in second-quarter revenue in results published Sunday (2026-08-02), up 28 percent from the prior three months, driven entirely by price. Average realized price rose 35 percent sequentially to $85 per barrel of oil equivalent, lifted by stronger LNG and crude oil realizations, while production fell nine percent to 41.3 million barrels of oil equivalent over the same period.5
The volume decline complicates the headline. Gas production dropped 16 percent to 1.33 billion cubic feet per day, and sales volumes fell seven percent to 48 million barrels of oil equivalent. Prices rescued the quarter. But for a company whose most consequential forward-looking commitment is a large US Gulf Coast LNG project, the production trajectory matters as much as the spot price windfall.5
Louisiana LNG, formerly Driftwood LNG, is Woodside's Gulf Coast export project holding a Department of Energy permit authorizing 1.42 trillion cubic feet per year of natural gas equivalent in exports, or 27.6 million metric tonnes per annum of LNG. That DOE authorization places it among the larger permitted but not yet fully operational US export projects. Reaching a final investment decision requires signed long-term offtake contracts and project financing at a moment when US domestic gas prices remain historically low.
NYMEX Henry Hub front-month closed at $2.75 per MMBtu on Friday (2026-07-31). Asian JKM, the spot LNG benchmark for Northeast Asia, was last quoted at $21.45 per MMBtu. That gap of roughly $19 per MMBtu, before liquefaction costs and freight, keeps the commercial case for new Gulf Coast LNG export terminals intact. The spread is bridged through the Atlantic LNG arbitrage, which has sustained the US export construction cycle for the better part of a decade.4
EIA data show US LNG exports grew from 0.5 billion cubic feet per day in 2016 to 15 billion cubic feet per day in 2025. Capacity is on track to nearly double again by 2031, and Shell estimates that feedgas demand for LNG export could reach 23 percent of total US gas production by 2035.4
Domestic supply appears capable of supporting that growth, at least on current forecasts. The EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook from May 2026 (2026-05-21) reported Lower 48 marketed gas production averaged 117.2 billion cubic feet per day in the first quarter of 2026, up four percent from the year-earlier period. The agency forecast a further three percent increase for the full year, driven by the Permian Basin at a projected 29.2 billion cubic feet per day in 2026, six percent above 2025 levels. Haynesville, the basin most closely linked to Gulf Coast LNG feedgas supply, is expected to grow six percent this year and eight percent in 2027.1
Delfin Midstream's $5 billion final investment decision announced Wednesday (2026-06-03) for a floating LNG export terminal off the Louisiana coast confirmed that financiers and offtakers remain willing to commit capital at current spreads. Delfin's project is separate from Louisiana LNG, but its sanction narrows the distance between DOE-permitted capacity and actual contracted LNG infrastructure on the Gulf Coast. The project is also described as the largest floating LNG facility globally, a scale that signals ambition well beyond what was typical of early US export projects.3,2
Woodside nudged its full-year production guidance upward, raising the lower bound from 172 million barrels of oil equivalent to 174 million while trimming the ceiling from 186 million to 185 million. The tightened range of 174 to 185 million barrels of oil equivalent reflects improved near-term visibility without materially changing the annual output picture.5
ICE Brent crude front-month closed at $91.04 per barrel on Friday (2026-07-31), with WTI at $84.67 per barrel. Woodside's Q2 average realized price of $85 per boe sat within range of those benchmarks, suggesting the revenue result was not built on a price spike that investors need to heavily discount going forward.5
The company is also developing Trion, a Mexican ultra-deepwater project sanctioned in 2023 alongside state-owned Pemex with a $7.2 billion budget and a floating production unit targeting 100,000 barrels per day. Trion's volume ramp will influence whether Woodside can rebuild production independently of how quickly Louisiana LNG progresses.5
The key forward variable for Louisiana LNG is converting its DOE authorization into contracted offtake and a sanctioned project. The JKM-Henry Hub spread currently provides the commercial justification. Yet the EIA projects growing Lower 48 gas output through 2027, which could press NYMEX Henry Hub front-month lower even as Woodside's own gas production runs below year-earlier levels. Long-dated LNG sales agreements negotiated into a softening Henry Hub would lock in favorable feedgas economics for buyers — and may determine how much of the current spread Louisiana LNG's developers can capture before competition from other permitted projects narrows it.5,14