NEW YORK, March 12, 2026, 17:18 EDT
Woodside Energy Group Ltd’s U.S.-listed shares rose 11.5 U.S. cents to $22.33 on Thursday as oil pushed back toward $100 a barrel, putting the Australian producer back on traders’ radar. The move came as fresh Middle East supply fears lifted energy stocks while broader markets turned defensive. 1
The rally matters because weaker realized oil and gas prices helped pull Woodside’s 2025 underlying profit down to $2.65 billion from $2.88 billion a year earlier, even though strong output kept the result ahead of forecasts. Woodside said its Scarborough project was 94% complete and still on track for first LNG — liquefied natural gas, or gas chilled for shipping — in the fourth quarter of 2026, while Tim Waterer of KCM Trade said a further Louisiana LNG sell-down looked like a “smart way to monetise a high-quality asset” and reduce balance-sheet risk. 2
Earlier in Sydney, Woodside rose 1.58% to A$30.90 by 3 p.m. AEDT. Rival producers Santos and Beach Energy also gained, and the energy sector was the only part of the ASX 200 in positive territory as the main index fell 1.67%. 3
Brent settled at $100.46 a barrel, up 9.2%, after Iran stepped up attacks on oil and transport facilities across the Middle East and said the Strait of Hormuz would stay closed. Jim Burkhard, vice president and global head of crude oil research at S&P Global Energy, said “The market is seriously unbalanced” and warned a return to normal flows would not come quickly. 4
That matters for Woodside because the Strait of Hormuz is a narrow shipping lane linking Gulf producers to global buyers. The International Energy Agency said the war had created the biggest oil supply disruption in history, with March supply expected to fall by 8 million barrels per day, though it also said some producers could raise supply from April through routes that bypass Hormuz. 5
Still, not every extra dollar in spot crude would feed straight into Woodside’s earnings. In its full-year briefing last month, the company said it had progressively hedged — locked in prices for — 18 million barrels of 2026 oil output at about $70 a barrel, giving it cash-flow certainty but limiting some upside if the rally holds. 6
That is one reason the stock still carries risk if oil cools as fast as it jumped. Goldman Sachs on Thursday raised its fourth-quarter Brent forecast to $71 a barrel from $66 because it now expects a longer Hormuz disruption, but that target is still well below current spot levels, suggesting the bank sees today’s spike easing as reserve releases and recovering flows work through the market. 7
Woodside’s own disclosures this week have been routine, which points to a move driven more by macro headlines than fresh operating news. ASX and company filings showed a dividend currency update earlier in the week, followed on Thursday by notices that 11,183 ordinary shares had been issued after rights were exercised and 16,154 performance rights had lapsed. 8
