Woodside CEO Liz Westcott says her legacy to be determined by huge investment program

Woodside Energy chief executive Liz Westcott says her legacy will be determined by whether Australia’s biggest oil and gas company can go global and deliver its biggest-ever investment program.

With the $16 billion Scarborough LNG project off northern WA nearly complete, Woodside is now focused on a busy offshore development schedule that includes the Trion oil field in Mexico and the Louisiana LNG project in the US.

“We will have a huge capital delivery program ahead of us . . . a lot of my legacy will be doing all that just like we say we will, creating value, but navigating the conversations about energy security,” Ms Westcott told The West Australian’s Leadership Matters breakfast on Thursday.

“There’s a lot around taking an organisation that’s been largely Australian with ambitions to be global, making it a true global player ... so setting up for its next chapter and its next 70 years.”

Ms Westcott, formerly Woodside’s Australian operations boss, was appointed interim chief executive in December and confirmed in the role in March, succeeding Meg O’Neill who is now running BP in London.

It’s one of the nation’s most prominent corporate jobs, placing the career energy executive at the forefront of a bitter battle with climate activists who argue that Woodside’s pursuit of fossil fuel projects is incompatible with global decarbonisation targets.

Woodside’s push to now develop the huge Browse gas fields, also off northern WA, is further elevating tensions with environmentalists and testing the Albanese Government’s clean energy credentials.

Ms Westcott used the function at Crown Perth to promote the potential of Browse to help underpin the growth of WA’s defence industry and guarantee power for data centres even as she recognised opposition to the project by encouraging “respectful, balanced” debate.

“I know the vision of Browse that I have presented here today may not be shared by everyone,” she said.

“And that’s OK. We recognise the significant public interest in the project, and legitimate concerns around how Woodside will manage the project’s potential environmental impacts.”

However, she said Woodside was not retreating from its insistence that gas is a needed transition fuel as the world develops cleaner alternative energy sources.

Ms Westcott cited from a report by global ratings firm S&P Global last week that forecast emerging economies could push world energy demand up more than 60 per cent by 2060 — the equivalent of adding another China’s worth of consumption.

“We are going to need everything to get there,” she said, adding that gas could “absolutely play a role” as “a back-up” to renewables.

“In South Australia on any given day, renewables do all the energy . . . but when they’re not there, the gas system is the back-up.”

Her comments follow Woodside’s recent decision to dump a target to invest $7 billion in clean energy and scrap its goal for scope 3 emissions.

The moves reflect management scepticism about the likely returns on unproven ammonia or hydrogen projects, as well as reduced pressure from some big shareholders to reduce exposure to fossil fuels.

Asked specifically on Thursday about Woodside’s scaled-back ambitions in hydrogen, Ms Westcott insisted the company still saw a role for hydrogen but “it’s taking longer today than we thought”.

She said the industry needed to be assured that hydrogen technology was feasible and capable of being developed commercially, adding that projects needed supportive government policy as well as committed customers.

“New customers need to want the product, they need to buy the product and be willing to back the development,” Ms Westcott said.

“And while while they’re still keen, they’re not yet willing to put money behind that.”

She said Woodside was still “staying in the conversation” about its proposed H2Perth liquid hydrogen plant in Kwinana and a potential hydrogen trucking initiative, “importantly, staying connected with customers, who ultimately need to be there for you when you’re developing the product”.

In recent months, Woodside and other Australian gas exporters have warned the Federal Government that its contentious gas reservation plan to put aside up to 20 per cent of exports for the domestic market could scare off investment.

Ms Westcott renewed her support for WA’s existing and long-running scheme, which requires the State’s producers to reserve the equivalent of 15 per cent of exports over the life of their projects for domestic buyers.

Critics have argued that the producers have often played the WA scheme by sometimes injecting less than 10 per cent into the market in any given year in order to prioritise LNG exports.

But Ms Wescott said the WA policy was “a WA solution for a WA challenge”.

“Its flexibility has ensured the state has enough gas for domestic, industrial and resource sector use,” she said.

“It has also balanced domestic needs with the ability to attract global investment in new supply and build a wealth-generating export industry.

“As we prepare for the introduction of a national gas reservation scheme, WA must retain this ability and the opportunity it affords.”