‘A tonne of work’: Woodside Energy chief Meg O’Neill disappointed over spurned climate plan

Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill has admitted the energy giant was disappointed by a resounding protest vote against its climate strategy after a “tonne of work” that had gone into consultation with shareholders.

Speaking at the Macquarie Australia Conference in Sydney on Tuesday — her first public appearance since a dramatic annual general meeting earlier this month — Ms O’Neill said Woodside had incorporated “a lot” of the feedback provided by its backers in the two years since the company’s first climate transition plan was rejected.

The Perth-based oil and gas company’s second climate transition plan was knocked back by 58 per cent of shareholders at its April AGM, with the likes of Aware Super, HESTA and the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors among the critics.

Ms O’Neill said Woodside was disappointed after the level of consultation taken on the plan, but told the conference there had been good engagement with shareholders since.

“A tonne of work went into the climate transition action plan, we are disappointed with the outcome,” she said.

“Today’s been a great day actually to have some good engagement with shareholders about why they voted the way they voted, and what they’d like to either better understand or see from us differently.”

She noted it had also only been about two years since investors backed in the company’s landmark deal to buy BHP’s petroleum assets; a big commitment to the resource.

“But there’s a lot to our strategy that I think is sound and a lot to our strategy that our investors have affirmed,” she said.

“You probably only have to go as far back as the merger where we had 98-plus per cent of our shareholders voted in favour of acquiring the BHP petroleum merger, doubling our oil and gas production.”

Woodside has pledged to spend $US5 billion on new energy projects and low carbon services by 2030, but has so far only spent about $335 million.

She indicated Woodside’s portfolio of new projects, including a carbon capture and storage hub in the Pilbara and a hydrogen production and storage station in Perth, needed offtake partners to progress.

“We want to make sure that we have a bit of flexibility to continue to evolve as the market evolves, but we do need to get customers who are signing on the dotted line in price contracts to allow us to progress these opportunities,” she said.

Ms O’Neill was most upbeat about the proposed H2OK liquid hydrogen project in Oklahoma. It was “well-advanced from a technological perspective” and there were a “number of potential offtake discussions”.