Woodside Petroleum

From Open Encyclopedia

Woodside Petroleum Limited is an Australian petroleum mining company. It is a public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Woodside operates a number of offshore wells in the North West Shelf, a huge new oil and gas field off the north-western coast of Western Australia, and is conducting exploration in a number of other areas off Western Australia and Victoria. In the United States, it is currently exploring several fields in the Gulf of Mexico. It operates a number of oil and gas fields off the coast of Mauritania, most notably the Chinguetti deposit and is a partner in fields in Algeria. Woodside also holds exploration interests in Kenya, Libya, Sierra Leone, the Canary Islands.

In February 2006, the Mauritanian government led by Ely Ould Mohamed Vall denounced amendments to an oil contract made by former authoritarian leader Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya with Woodside Petroleum. In 2004, Woodside had agreed in investing US$ 600 million in developing Mauritania's Chinguetti offshore oil project. The controversed amendments, which Mauritanian authorities declared that they had been signed "outside the legal framework of normal practice, to the great detriment of our country", could cost Mauritania up to $200 million a year, according to BBC News <ref> “Mauritania and firm row over oil,” BBC News, February 6, 2006.“Crise ouverte avec la compagnie pétrolière Woodside,” Radio France International, February 6, 2006.</ref>..

The company employs around 2,100 people, and had a net profit after tax of 528 million AUD on revenues of 2,019 million AUD in 2003.

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