Woodside Energy Group Ltd
ACN 004 898 962
Mia Yellagonga
11 Mount Street
Perth WA 6000
Australia
T +61 8 9348 4000
www.woodside.com
ASX: WDS
NYSE: WDS
LSE: WDS
Announcement
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
CHAIR'S LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS
Attached is a letter to shareholders from
Woodside Chair, Mr Richard Goyder AO.
Contacts:
|
|
|
INVESTORS
Marcela Louzada
M: +61 456 994 243
E: investor@woodside.com
|
MEDIA
Christine Forster
M: +61 484 112 469
E:
christine.forster@woodside.com
|
|
This announcement was approved and authorised for release by
Woodside's Disclosure Committee.
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Chair's letter to shareholders
Dear Woodside Shareholder,
On behalf of the Woodside Board, I am writing to
encourage your active participation in our 2024 Annual General
Meeting (AGM) on 24 April. You can do this by attending online or
in person at Crown Perth, by submitting a question to me as Chair,
and most importantly by casting your votes on the items being put
to shareholders.
Your participation, and our ability to engage with
you through the AGM, is important to me and to my fellow
directors.
I would like to share my reflections on this
transformative period in Woodside's 70-year history and my
confidence in the company's long-term future. I joined Woodside's
Board in 2017 and became Chair of this great Australian company in
2018, a position I am extremely proud to hold. Over that time, we
have reshaped Woodside to become the largest energy company in
Australia, with a significant global footprint and strong
foundation for future growth.
In 2022, our shareholders overwhelmingly approved
Woodside's merger with BHP's petroleum business by a positive vote
of 98.66%.
A year earlier in 2021, the Board formally appointed
Meg O'Neill as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, and I
am proud of the exceptional leadership, vision and energy she has
demonstrated in this role.
Over the past few years we have been reshaping
Woodside's Board, with the appointment of three new Directors who
broaden the skills and experience of our Board and bring
international expertise.
This significant refresh of our company's portfolio
and leadership has enabled us to achieve strong operational and
financial performance, while laying the foundations for future
growth and value. This includes taking final investment decisions
on Scarborough in 2021 and Trion last year, as well as achieving
the sell downs on the Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 projects.
In the two years since the merger, Woodside has
returned a total of 393 US cents per share, fully franked, in
dividends. This amounts to US$7.5 billion (equivalent to A$11.2
billion) distributed to our shareholders, representing an average
dividend yield of 9%. Woodside's disciplined capital management
framework supports the company to navigate through the investment
and commodity price cycles. We remain focused on creating value for
shareholders and our major projects are well placed to do this as
they support future demand from customers.
At the same time as delivering these strong results
for our shareholders, the Board and I are absolutely focused on
Woodside's long-term future and our strategy to thrive through the
energy transition.
We believe that climate change is an urgent global
challenge, and that the energy sector has an important role to play
in the transition to a net zero world. We acknowledge the previous
concerns of shareholders, as reflected in the voting results at the
2022 and 2023 AGMs. Your votes sent a strong message that we had to
improve our climate transition plans and disclosures.
Since then, we have stepped up our engagements to
better understand investor expectations on our governance and
climate transition strategy. In the last 12 months, we have had
hundreds of meetings with shareholders and proxy advisors, and I
have personally led over 80 of those engagements. Based on your
feedback, we have prepared our Climate Transition Action Plan
(CTAP) and you can find a summary of investor feedback and where it
has been addressed on page 9 of the CTAP. We have also added a
comprehensive overview on our website at
www.woodside.com/investors. We believe this demonstrates our
commitment to engaging, listening and responding to investor
feedback. You may have seen in the media that some proxy advisers
have sought to reject the CTAP based on a perceived lack of
shareholder engagement. We disagree with this assessment.
In response to investor feedback, Woodside committed
to put its climate disclosures to a vote of shareholders at this
year's AGM. Such a vote is not required by law or a feature of
common market practice but is something that our investors
specifically asked for and we have met this commitment.
We are being honest about the energy transition. It
is the Board's view that the CTAP effectively articulates the
challenges and demonstrates Woodside's plans and progress towards
mitigating the risks of climate change. We believe the approach
Woodside is taking is Paris-aligned as we are making progress on
our Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction plans, and we assess both our
current portfolio and our future investment options for their
resilience to the energy transition. Our CTAP presents a
well-considered and realistic pathway that deserves the firm
support of our shareholders at our 2024 AGM.
The Board is responsible for protecting shareholder
value and to effectively mitigate the long-term risks of climate
change to Woodside's business model. We are concerned that some
stakeholders' and investors' requests to drastically change
Woodside's strategy and investment priorities risk eroding value
for all shareholders and contributing to a disorderly energy
transition. The energy transition will take time and significant
investment, and I am confident that Woodside's disciplined approach
is the right path for our shareholders.
Regardless of the outcome of the advisory vote on our
CTAP, Woodside will continue to seek investor feedback and
continually evolve our climate change strategy with the goal of
enabling Woodside to thrive through the energy transition. Our
vision for Woodside is: in 2050 we will be a successful energy
company, having responded and evolved to customers' and society's
needs in the energy transition. We will achieve it in a competitive
and commercial way that creates value for our shareholders.
Our Board will also evolve. We will continuously seek
the right expertise and skills to provide leadership and oversight,
and support Woodside's global operations and strategic growth
opportunities through the energy transition.
In conclusion, I have never been more energised and
excited at the prospect of serving as Chair of Woodside. You have
my assurance that I will continue, and wherever possible expand, my
engagement with Woodside's shareholders to ensure we continue to
meet your expectations as a successful and responsible energy
company.
Thank you for investing and placing your trust in
Woodside.
Yours faithfully
Richard Goyder
AO
Chair of the Board