Woodside Petroleum Ltd’s
(ASX:WPL) bid to keep up the pace with arch-rival Chevron has been boosted by its second major gas discovery in two days.
Yesterday Woodside announced another gas discovery, this time at its Larsen Deep-1 well which is around 100km from its Pluto gasfield.
Woodside has approved an expansion of the $13 billion Pluto LNG project by the end of the year.
But energy analysts are warning that the oil and gas producer remains under strong pressure to announce further discoveries of its own to underpin the Pluto expansion.
Woodside and Chevron are the two leading players in the West Australian LNG industry and have been going head-to-head as they try to make further gas discoveries, sign up third-party gas suppliers and secure LNG buyers.
Woodside will deliver its first-half results today with analysts predicting a $970 million net profit.
Woodside Petroleum’s 2009 net profit after tax was $1.8 billion dollars, representing an increased result on the two years before.
