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AAP
AAP
Business
Michael Ramsey

Energy crisis, merger fuels higher Woodside profit

Woodside Energy's full-year underlying net profit has soared to $US5.2 billion. (PR HANDOUT IMAGE PHOTO) (AAP)

Woodside has tripled its full-year profit and increased its return to shareholders on the back of soaring energy demand and the acquisition of BHP's oil assets.

The Perth-based oil and gas giant on Monday announced underlying net profit of $US5.2 billion ($A7.7 billion) in the 2022 calendar year, up 223 per cent from the previous year.

Shareholders will receive a final dividend of $US1.44 ($A2.14) per share.

Woodside chief executive Meg O'Neill said the company had delivered exceptional results and executed a successful merger with BHP's petroleum business which drove increased production and sales.

The global energy crisis fuelled higher commodity prices, with the company's realised price rising 63 per cent to $US98 ($A146) per barrel of oil equivalent.

"Woodside is now a larger, geographically diverse energy company with the financial and operational strength to grow our portfolio of high-quality assets while continuing to deliver returns to shareholders," Ms O'Neill said.

"In what was a momentous year for Woodside we achieved the goals we set ourselves ahead of the merger, implementing initiatives to deliver the targeted $400 million in synergies ahead of our original schedule."

Ms O'Neill said the enormous Scarborough LNG project, which is the subject of two court challenges launched by environmental groups, was 25 per cent complete, on budget and targeting first production in 2026.

Activist group Market Forces said Woodside continued to promote a strategy that "undermined climate action by paying big executive bonuses for increasing oil and gas production".

Woodside's shares were trading 1.5 per cent higher at $35.13 just before 11am AEDT.

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