Woodside Petroleum Ltd
(ASX:WPL) has reported a net profit after tax of US$901 million for the first half year, representing 40% growth from the same time last year.
The oil and gas producer says stronger commodity prices and the gain on the sale of its Otway asset helped drive up the profit.
Revenue also increased, up 45% to US$2.1 billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was up 19.3% to $US1.742 billion for the period.
Woodside says however, production fell 8.5% due to the Otway divestment and natural field decline in its oil assets. An interim dividend of 50 cents fully franked has been declared to be paid on 23 September.
Yesterday Woodside announced a gas discovery at its Larsen Deep-1 well, around 100km from its Pluto gas field off Western Australia.
Woodside Petroleum reported a profit of $1.8 billion for the year to 30 December 2009.
