Woodside second-quarter sales decline 8% as energy prices slide

PERTH, Australia (Bloomberg) -- Woodside Petroleum, Australia’s second-biggest oil and gas producer, posted an 8.1% drop in second-quarter revenue after a decline in energy prices.

Sales slid to $825 million from $898 million a year earlier, the Perth-based producer said in a statement Thursday. Output increased 10.4% to 22.2 MMboe on higher production from its Pluto LNG project in Western Australia.

Woodside is among producers contending with reduced revenue as energy prices slide amid swelling supply. Brent oil, the global benchmark, averaged about $47/bbl during the second quarter, compared with $63.50 during the same period in 2015.

Prices are down 17% the past year. Shares in Woodside, which derives more than half of its revenue from LNG, have dropped 21% in the past year. The company reported a 99% decline in full-year profit for 2015, its worst result in 13 years, forcing a write-down in the value of its assets.

Woodside announced this month the purchase of ConocoPhillips’s assets in Senegal for $350 million to gain a stake in exploration blocks off the West African nation. Oil Search Ltd. last year rejected Woodside’s $8-billion takeover bid in what would have been the biggest energy acquisition in Asia-Pacific.