News & Media

New York | Woodside Energy chief executive Meg O’Neill says low corporate taxes in the United States and the country’s embrace of energy projects mean it remains a good long-term investment destination regardless of any day-to-day policy volatility emanating from Donald Trump’s White House.

O’Neill said the two clear themes coming out of the Trump administration were an appetite to ramp up energy supply to keep prices low, and the building of tariff walls to give US firms a leg-up in international trade.

“Whilst there’s dynamics day-to-day, the trend lines and the themes of the administration are quite clear,” she said in an interview. “So I just try to park the noise and some of the volatility and focus on ‘what are the key messages?’ And the key messages are the US is open for business, and the US desperately wants energy investment.”

With his campaign catch-cry of “drill baby, drill”, Trump has rallied investment in fossil fuel projects in his second term as part of a promise to keep energy prices low and maintain US dominance in the sector. But he has also lifted uncertainty for the broader corporate sector through his trade war, threats of revenge taxes on foreign-owned companies and strong-arming of firms on issues from marketing to revenue-sharing deals.

O’Neill, speaking on the sidelines of an energy conference in New York, said even though some of the administration’s moves were rare in the context of recent history, the US remained a stable investment location.

“The investment decisions we make are investment decisions that are going to be with us for 20, 30, 40 years, so we look at long-term fundamentals, and in our world, you know, the first question is, where is there gas or oil? And there’s nowhere that has more gas and oil than the US,” she said.

“We’re a proudly Australian company, and we intend to remain as such.” — Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill

The US was competitive on tax in particular, O’Neill added. Large companies pay a 30 per cent rate in Australia, compared to 21 per cent plus state taxes in the US. Some states, such as Texas, do not charge an additional rate.

The Perth-headquartered company has bet big on the US as a source of future growth, investing tens of billions across an LNG project in Louisiana, a low-carbon ammonia plant in Texas and the expansion of oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Its major growth project in Australia is the Scarborough gas field off the coast of Western Australia, and it has been waiting six years for approval to extend its North West Shelf operations. By 2031, O’Neill expects Woodside’s revenue to be split roughly 50-50 from Australia and North America, whilst maintaining some smaller projects elsewhere.

But the Colorado-raised executive hosed down suggestions Woodside would move its primary listing from the ASX to New York, where investors can access the company through American depositary shares. “We’re a proudly Australian company, and we intend to remain as such,” she said.

Last year, some major investors, including Allan Gray, suggested the shift in the company’s portfolio toward the US could provide an opportunity to move its primary listing to North America. “It affords optionality, almost an ‘out’, if the regulatory regime in Australia proves to be too burdensome,” Simon Mawhinney, Allan Gray’s chief investment officer said at the time.

Louisiana LNG, the $US17.5 billion ($26.4 billion) project that Woodside agreed to proceed with in April, will be the biggest in the state’s history and the largest fossil fuel investment so far in Trump’s second term.

The company is in talks with potential equity investors for the project, but no deal is imminent. “We’re very focused on getting quality partners in for the right price, and we’re not schedule-driven,” O’Neill said.

After Woodside completed its acquisition in October of Tellurian – the company that had progressed the initial stages of the Louisiana LNG development – the $50 billion company inherited a Washington, DC office. Woodside directors converged on the US capital for a board meeting in June.

“From Australia, you see headlines every day, but it’s hard to understand what’s happening behind the headlines. So the meeting was really constructive in helping unpack [that],” O’Neill said.

Woodside has separately backed away from a hydrogen project in Oklahoma in January, citing lower-than-anticipated returns compared to other sites, including Louisiana and an ammonia plant planned for Beaumont, Texas. The Texas plant, east of Houston, is on track to deliver its first product this year, and a low-carbon version by late next year.

The low-carbon ammonia will be in demand from electricity plants looking to decarbonise their output by blending the compound in with thermal coal, and from maritime customers looking for a greener fuel source.

“The [hydrogen] market just hasn’t developed at the pace that we expected,” O’Neill said, noting customer intentions to embrace the green fuel in the near-term did not materialise. “Whereas the market for LNG and the market for low-carbon ammonia continue to be quite robust.”