Woodside fatality, safety lapses mar strong first half

"The loss of our colleague was a tragedy for his family and friends and has had an emotional impact on everyone at Woodside," Ms O'Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.

Investigations by WA Police, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority and Woodside itself are ongoing.

Ms O'Neill said Woodside has implemented changes to its operational procedures.

There was also a serious incident at Woodside's Pluto LNG plant in WA in May that workers have described as an explosion that could have seriously injured personnel.

Woodside has called the incident an "audible release" of gas from a flare tower, and says it understands what happened and that corrective action has been taken.

"I am not satisfied with our current safety performance," Ms O'Neill told analysts on a conference call Tuesday. 

"Across all our operations, we are committed to increasing our focus on safety and we are determined to return to leading safety performance."

Woodside recorded a half-year net profit after tax of $US1.7 billion ($A2.7 billion), up six per cent from a year ago, as operating revenue rose 27 per cent to $US7.4 billion ($A11.5 billion).

Ms O'Neill said Woodside remained in constructive dialogue with workers at its North West Shelf platforms off the coast of WA who have threatened industrial action over pay and working conditions.

"There are a number of different actions that they might take, ranging from things that would have a modest impact on the business to things that would have a more significant impact on the business,'' she said. 

"I don't know what the unions are going to call," adding that she felt good about the way negotiations were progressing.

With politicians in Canberra debating a hike to the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT), Ms O'Neill and chief financial officer Graham Tiver highlighted the $A3.7 billion that Woodside paid to Australian state and federal governments in the first half.

"This is a record contribution for Woodside and demonstrated the mechanism for paying taxes is working," Mr Tiver said.

"When Woodside profits, higher taxes are paid."

He said Woodside paid more than $A1 billion in PRRT in the 12 months to June 30, and had a global, all-in effective tax rate of 42 per cent.

"The contributions we make to the Australian economy and other jurisdictions we operate in is something we're really proud of," Mr Tiver said.

Ms O'Neill said Woodside remained committed to investing $5 billion in green energy projects by 2030 and was exploring multiple options in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Its most advanced project is known as H2OK, a proposed liquid hydrogen plant in the US state of Oklahoma that Woodside plans to make a final investment decision on this year.

The company has already bought the land, 38 hectares at an industrial park, and is reviewing construction bids and is in offtake discussions with customers.

Ms O'Neill said Woodside was forecasting a big ramp-up in demand for liquid hydrogen, a low-carbon fuel she said was needed by industrial economies in places such as Europe and northern Asia to meet their targets for decarbonisation.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Gordon Ramsay said the results were in line with expectations and highlighted the contributions from BHP's petroleum assets that Woodside acquired in June 2022.

At 11.42am AEST, Woodside shares were down 2.2 per cent to $37.61.