SYDNEY, June 29, 2026, 01:02 (AEST)
- ASX cash trading wasn’t open yet; normal hours in Sydney are 09:59:45 to 16:00. Woodside finished Friday at A$27.65.
- Woodside dropped 4.8% last week, while the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.7%. Shares slid for four sessions before a slight bounce on Friday.
- Brent crude dropped 10.86% this week as tanker traffic picked up in the Strait of Hormuz.
- The Alcoa gas deal comes out to around 21 TJ per day on average from 2027 to 2030. That’s nearly double AEMO’s initial forecast for the WA gas supply gap in 2030.
Woodside Energy Group Ltd ASX:WDS heads into Monday on the ASX with shares acting much like an oil play. A domestic gas deal last week gave investors a clearer view of what its Western Australian supply could be worth, but the stock is still moving with oil.
Woodside shares finished Friday at A$27.65, up 0.8% on the day. That’s still below last week’s A$29.03 close. The stock lost 4.8% over the week, while the S&P/ASX 200 gave up just 0.7%. Trading spiked to 8.33 million shares on Thursday when Woodside dropped 2.9%, before the volume fell to 4.79 million shares on Friday.
Crude pulled the biggest weight. Brent finished at $71.99 a barrel Friday, sinking 4.34% on the day and losing 10.86% for the week, according to Reuters. Tankers kept moving through the Strait of Hormuz and worries over supply dropped. “There is a growing sense that oil is going to keep moving through the Strait of Hormuz,” Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group, told Reuters. Reuters
PVM’s Tamas Varga said the market is looking at “imminent oversupply.” June Goh, senior oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities, pointed to more supply from the strait while China “not yet picking up crude demand.” Reuters
Barclays Plc (LON:BARC) lowered its Brent crude price outlook to $96 a barrel for 2026 and $85 for 2027 on Friday, down from $100 and $88, following increased oil movement through the strait. Barclays still expects a third-quarter supply deficit as the bank doesn’t see production recovering fast enough.
Woodside’s domestic gas play in WA is getting more attention. The company sealed a deal Tuesday to sell 31.1 petajoules of gas to Alcoa Corp’s (NYSE:AA) Australian operations. The supply runs from 2027 through 2030, with the agreement set to deliver around 7.8 PJ annually, which breaks down to about 21 TJ per day over the four years.
Woodside reported its 2025 WA natural gas output at 90.3 PJ, or about 21% of Western Australia’s domestic gas. The Alcoa contract represents around 8.6% of Woodside’s expected 2025 WA gas volumes if split evenly. “We are continuing to bring gas to the Western Australian market,” said Mark Abbotsford, executive vice president marketing and chief commercial officer at Woodside.
Gas supply in WA is a focus as AEMO projects gaps from 11 TJ/day in 2030 up to 478 TJ/day by 2045. That’s mostly because output is expected to drop faster than demand. A 21 TJ/day contract won’t move the needle much for Woodside, but even small WA deals now matter more in a tightening domestic market.
Scarborough is still the big test for the share price. Woodside says the project is now more than 96% finished, not counting changes to Pluto Train 1, and the company is aiming for its first LNG cargo in the fourth quarter. Scarborough’s LNG capacity is 8 million tonnes a year, with about 5 mtpa set to run through Pluto Train 2 and up to 3 mtpa through Pluto Train 1.
Woodside next reports July 29 for Q2 and Aug. 25 for half-year numbers. Monday’s session is the market’s first look at whether Friday’s rebound sticks. Brent stays near last week’s lows, and the stock holds just above Thursday’s intraday bottom at A$27.23.
