Woodside Energy Group Ltd (WDS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
March 26, 2020
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorThank you for standing by, and welcome to the Woodside Petroleum market update. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Peter Coleman, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Peter Coleman
executiveGood morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us today. Obviously, there's a lot of uncertainty in the world at the moment, and I know investors want some answers on how this affects Woodside and how we're going to manage it. So as you're aware, our industry is facing both demand and supply shocks as we deal with the fallout of COVID-19 and from the volatility in price arising from the OPEC+ 1 dispute. Of course, these are extraordinary and challenging times for us. And a few months ago, no one really could have foreseen these circumstances. Today, I'll talk briefly about what we're doing to minimize the risks of COVID-19 to our people and our business so that we can continue to deliver gas to our Australian and international customers. Then I'll run through the prudent but difficult decisions we've taken to ensure we can ride this out and emerge on the other side in a position of strength. We entered this period of uncertainty in good shape and intend to get through it and be ready to pursue opportunities when they arise. In a nutshell, we're halving our forecast expenditure for 2020 and deferring final investment decisions for Scarborough, Pluto Train 2 and Browse while taking other steps to protect our revenue. Our highest priority is the health and safety of our people, staff and contractors, their families and our communities. We've had teams working since January to prepare our business for COVID-19 and have taken steps to comply with expert health and government guidance. For instance, we needed to reduce the number of people on our offshore platforms given the close work and living arrangements. We've also put in place new arrangements to minimize infection risk to those who are critical to our operations. We understand the gravity of this health crisis and are playing our part to flatten the curve while keeping the company and our operations running. So what are we doing in response to the financial challenge presented by a lower and volatile oil price? While it helps that we have, in the past 2 years, very deliberately built our financial resilience in preparation for a growth period involving higher capital expenditure. At the end of February, we had USD 4.9 billion cash on hand, total liquidity of $7.9 billion and low gearing of 13.8%. Our debt profile is well balanced and low cost. Our debt covenants are not at risk under current conditions. Woodside unit production cost in 2020 across the portfolio is expected to remain very competitive at only $4.50 per barrel of oil equivalent. To help manage commodity volatility and improve revenue certainty, we've taken steps to reduce exposure to further downside hedging 11.85 million barrels of oil between April and December at an average price of $33.47 per barrel. The hedge structure allows us to benefit from higher oil prices should they eventuate later in the year. We've also agreed to fix the price of approximately 2.4 million barrels of LNG production over the same period. Now as I've already mentioned, we're cutting spending. Nonessential activities this year have been canceled or deferred. This delivers an approximately 50% reduction in our forecast total expenditure to $2.4 billion, including a reduction of around $100 million in operating expenditure and a 60% reduction in investment expenditure. We've acted quickly and decisively to cut costs. You can read in the ASX release what this entails but to summarize, we're deferring some nonessential maintenance activity and most of our exploration program. We're hitting the pause on some of our proposed growth projects, delaying Woodside's final investment decision for Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 to 2021. We're also delaying Woodside's FID target for Browse. In the meantime, we'll be able to work on progressing commercial agreements and regulatory approvals for those proposed developments. We're maintaining an appropriate level of activity with our engineering contractors to support project progress on Scarborough and Pluto. We still think that Burrup Hub is one of the world's most competitive LNG investment opportunities, and we'll be ready to progress it when those external challenges pass. In Senegal, the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic are becoming apparent on work that is already underway in the Sangomar Field Development Phase 1. We're working with contractors, the Government of Senegal and our joint venture partners on options for reducing total cost of near-term spend while protecting the overall value of the investment. And just finally, this is a terrible and confronting time for everyone. We do not yet know what toll this pandemic will take on our country, but I do know that as a nation, we'll get through this. Companies like ours will have a crucial role to play in the recovery. Thank you. I'm here with Chief Financial Officer, Sherry Duhe, and are happy to take questions.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Saul Kavonic with Credit Suisse.
Saul Kavonic
analystA few quick questions, if I may. First one, just on the spend reduction. Are you able to confirm what is excluded in the $2.4 billion guidance? In particular, I'm thinking about the shipping costs, finance costs and debt repayment. Is that included or excluded in the $2.4 billion?
Sherry Duhe
executiveSaul, this is Sherry. Thanks for that. That is excluded. So what we've included in that is just simply operating spend, exploration spend and capital spend. So all of the other elements are not in that.
Saul Kavonic
analystPerfect. On the next item, there seems to be about $600 million in discretionary CapEx, which is still in the guidance for 2020. Could you give a breakdown of what is in that discretionary CapEx and what kind of triggers you might know you'd see in the oil market before you'd start paring back some of that as well?
Sherry Duhe
executiveOkay. So what you see in that is basically just the outcome of the -- well, in the first instance, the deferral of Scarborough and Pluto, we've also taken and scaled back on some of our other longer-term projects. So you've got Kitimat in there, Myanmar, et cetera. Sunrise, of course, but that's a minimal spend. We have also pared back significantly, and Peter has mentioned it as well on our Karratha Gas Plant extension activities. And so across the board, we've really scaled back on all of our capital spend for 2020.
Saul Kavonic
analystUnderstood. Perhaps I wasn't clear. I mean, if I look at the chart, there still seems to be some discretionary CapEx 2020.
Peter Coleman
executiveYes. So Saul, so discretionary CapEx, we've got -- so what Sherry talked about is the category. So they're the areas like the Karratha Life Extension, Myanmar, and so forth. Discretionary CapEx is categorized as CapEx that's not currently committed to. So that says if things get worse, we can dial it back even more. But we think this is a prudent baseline for expenditure at this point.
Saul Kavonic
analystFantastic. Also, can I ask about Sangomar? We've obviously seen announcements, for example, by FAR. Is there is a risk of pushing ahead that Woodside ends up having to essentially dilute all the joint venture partners and therefore, carry a greater burden of the CapEx? Or is it going to be -- do you see more scope to negotiate with your contractors and defer this materially into next year?
Peter Coleman
executiveWell, look, it's early days. We don't see a material deferral into next year. What we'll do is obviously go back to our contractors and look at sequencing where we can. There's going to be some natural delays anyway, Saul, simply from supply chain, particularly in the areas of wellheads and so forth. So it's because -- if you think about where billets for subsea wellheads come from, where some of the valves come from, they come from Northern Italy. So we're already seeing supply chain stress across the business on some of these critical items. What we haven't got yet is a full assessment from the contractors as to how that's going to affect schedule, but we have identified an amount of money that we think will be either saved on the project or pushed out into 2021, but it's too early for us at the moment to quantify it. I know some of our partners are doing that. But at this point, as operator, we're not prepared to quantify what that is. With respect to the carry provisions and so forth, the partners have 6 months under the agreement to remedy any cash calls that they're not able to place. So we'll be working with the partners to make sure they're able to meet their commitments.
Saul Kavonic
analystUnderstood. One last one for me. Given the -- what's happening in the sector, is Woodside potentially considering inorganic growth opportunities over the coming year given that there's potentially some bargains out there adjacent or within your existing assets and elsewhere?
Peter Coleman
executiveOkay. Obviously, it's too early to even think about that. You'd have to be in this situation for a number of months before any price -- the expectations between price of the seller and the buyer would actually meet. But clearly, we, like everybody else, are looking at those particular opportunities, but I'd say it's too early, Saul, to conclude that we'll go one way or the other. The only thing I would point out is by clearing the balance sheet this year, what it does is it opens up many options to us as we go through the year. So what we wanted to do is make sure that we weren't committed to a particular path, and this gives us an option, either inorganic growth, organic growth, and also given the cash we have, gives us other options to return cash to shareholders. So we just wanted to free ourselves up so we had optionality as we go through the year because it's going to be a very uncertain year for us from a price point of view -- both from the point of view of how quickly demand comes back into the market and then what the outcome of OPEC+ 1 will be and whether OPEC+ 1 can really hold out until late Q3 of this year, to have any real impact on the onshore producers in the U.S. if, that really is their objective. So we just look at it and say, "Let's develop a plan that will go at least 6 months, and potentially out through the end of this year." And if it slips into early next year, then as well, we've got all of that sorted.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Daniel Butcher from CLSA.
Daniel Butcher
analystYes, Peter, just wondering whether you could maybe update us on the contractor discussions around Scarborough/Pluto. You mentioned before, you locked in some favorable EPC rates and day rates on routes. Do you expect it being extended? Or do you think there's an opportunity to cut those further, given that most -- well, can't be certain of the word cutting CapEx, and these got to be pretty desperate for work in the next year or so.
Peter Coleman
executiveWe're obviously talking with our contractors overnight, Daniel. So the news for them is just as fresh as it is for us. I suppose 2 things. Firstly, I -- certainly, we were concerned about cost pressure coming back into the market. That was really driving some of our timing around moving forward with Train 2 and Pluto. I would suggest strongly to you that cost pressure is now evaporated in the market. And so from that point of view, it means we can prepare the projects in the way that we would wish to without being concerned about the market running away from us. So I think that's the first thing. There clearly will be some areas where we'll go back and discuss with the contractors. Those areas are drilling rig day rates and so forth, where we've seen some escalation. Again, we'll just have to wait for the timing of that because those contractors need to see what other clients are potentially doing before those rates will drop. So we've just got to find the right point at which we can do that. But I think the overall message is, no, we're not under any pressure now from growth in the market. And we were concerned about that because of the number of FIDs that went -- that were made last year and the potential FIDs coming into the market this year. We believe that's all gone. We believe all of the U.S. projects pretty much have moved out to the right in their schedule as well. So that pressure's off us. We just need a little bit of time for that then to work its way into the drilling rig market and the services market. And that will probably happen over the next 2 to 3 months. So we will take this opportunity to review all of those contracts and discuss them with the contractors.
Daniel Butcher
analystThat's helpful. Just sort of on that, which you alluded to just then, how do you sort of see the competitive environment for LNG FIDs? I mean, obviously, some are going to be delayed or, if not all. Do you see many, if any, going ahead in the next year in terms of FID? And I guess this widens the gap between those with financing firepower and those without. How do you see yourself placed in this sort of cash flow environment versus the range of other projects out there?
Peter Coleman
executiveYes. Look, I think there's a potential for a couple of projects to move forward just simply because they can, maybe not because they should. I think the Qatar projects are pretty well advanced with respect to the offshore element of those projects. So the facilities in the north field are being built in the offshore. The challenge will be the pace because of course, they have a lot of IOCs as partners there, so I think that will be dragged along by whatever decisions that Qataris choose to take. So the Qataris might be in the market and might see this as an opportunity to be able to build at a lower point in the cost cycle. Obviously, the Russian projects, we're just not sure what incentives Russia will offer for those projects to go ahead. We think others will be equally -- will be challenged. So projects that really haven't been sanctioned at this point other than those being driven by national oil companies I think will be challenged.
Daniel Butcher
analystOkay. And maybe just -- I mean, you mentioned in Saul's question about wellheads and valves in Northern Italy. Are there any other areas in which you're seeing major supply chain issues or even small ones that sort of upset the whole chain in terms of a small essential? So I imagine is -- they're all over the place [ with what they're doing ].
Peter Coleman
executiveLook, it's too early because the suppliers don't actually know themselves, to be quite frank, as to whether they'll be able to move some of the goods. Now as you know, freight is still moving by air, so that's -- that hasn't stopped, it's just the movement of people. The challenge for us is going to be around -- on the people's front will be around specialist services. And so we do rely on contractors for some specialist services, particularly in areas like major compressors and so forth. Those skills are not resident here in Australia. And we've been talking to Border Force about that. We haven't quite resolved that one yet. We have resolved emergency response, and so have strong assurance from government that if there is an emergency in our operations that would require overseas specialists that they will work with us to ensure that they can get to our facilities in a timely manner. So we're happy to continue current operations that affects our drilling program. As you can imagine, as we're starting to drill into the pay zone on some of those wells, we want to make sure we have adequate oil spill response. And we do have that. We've been able to give [ if not the same at least ] the assurance of that after working with Border Force on it. But on some of these other things, we're not quite sure. Now what we are doing is we're keeping a warm workforce available to us of key contractors. So whilst we've had layoffs of contractors this week who were doing discretionary work, and that's really designed to put a return around our COVID-19 plans. We will -- also we'll keep a core group of contractors warm on the bench, so to speak. They'll be mostly Karratha residents, so that we can call out when we need them and make sure that they're available and don't need to travel and so forth. So there's a number of things. But at the moment, way too early. None of the contractors are talking to us about what's going on now because they simply don't know. Now having said that, we're seeing China start up, so we've already been in the market with spot cargo into China. You would have seen the pollution readings are going up, which is an indication that manufacturing and business is starting to start up again. So as China started, I think you'll see demand come back in China fairly rapidly. The biggest question for us now is what's happening in Europe and the U.S.
Daniel Butcher
analystOkay. And sorry, but I'd just be taking that one more on the same sort of theme. In terms of Senegal, if you delay there and slow things down, which it sounds like you want to do at the very least. How -- who sort of wears the cost of doing that. Does the government wear the entire cost? Or do you split it with them? Or what sort of variables should we think about there in terms of how it might be split in terms of idle workforce and so forth.
Peter Coleman
executiveNo, we're not going to slow anything down that's detrimental to the economics of the project. So no, no. I mean, our partners have an obligation to pay cash costs when they're due. We have an approved development plan in place. What we're talking about is simply: one, a pragmatic approach, recognizing that some of the supply chain might be impacted; and two, looking for opportunities to pull costs out where contractors took the opportunity beforehand to increase costs. And we've seen it a couple of -- 1 project in particular that got in the queue before us with contractors. That project's now being canceled. We'll be going back to that particular contractor and expecting them to reduce their prices down to what they were showing us in the middle of last year. So we've got some target areas already, Daniel, where we know -- where we saw cost increases in the latter half of last year, and we'll be expecting those costs to come down in line with what we expected at the beginning of last year.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Mark Samter with MST.
Mark Samter
analystTwo questions if I can. Just on the first one, actually, perhaps I misread this 2.4 million barrels, not 2.4 million tonnes of LNG production that you've fixed a price with the customer. Can you just tell us the genesis of that? Was that entirely driven by you guys or was that customer-driven? Because I guess the region you're hedging, almost 12 million barrels of oil, I guess is -- given the balance sheet is strong, I guess you're taking a bit of view on oil, which would make it strange for an LNG customer who gets the benefit on the other side of that equation to be willing to hedge and underachieve production. We obviously have the price, you've done at that. But can you give us a bit more clarity where you kind of run that.
Sherry Duhe
executiveYes. So Mark, it is indeed, if you look at the updated spend profile that we've just put out this morning, we still will be somewhat cash flow negative for the year, and it is a market view that we've taken that there could be more volatility and even more downside on pricing. So we just thought that it would be pragmatic to smooth some of that out. The way that we've done that is through -- on the paper hedges is a combination of swaps and call options, so it allows us to lock in a minimum price but also participate on the upside for a percentage of production. And it is in barrels, just to clarify that question around it. And the customer that we locked in fixed pricing with is a European customer. So that helps also just in terms of win-win on that side of the transaction for some of our open cargoes that we had not locked in yet for the year.
Peter Coleman
executiveYes. Mark, [ Reed ], they're a customer, but they're a very sophisticated European customer who has taken the volumes and trades themselves. So they just saw that they could trade at physical position, and that's what they were looking for. So they're looking for physical cargoes as distinct from the paper swaps.
Sherry Duhe
executiveYes.
Mark Samter
analystOkay. Perfect. And then second question. I know maybe this is a bit too early to start talking, thinking about this, but obviously, the Browse -- FID has been pushed with no definitive time line. Do we think the options are -- I think you said before that some of the JV partners across the shelf in Scarborough had historically thought Scarborough should come into the North West Shelf if -- perhaps time lines becomes a bit more uncertain. Is there the scope to revisit the view of where Scarborough ends up?
Peter Coleman
executiveLook, I think it's way too early to predict where that will head, Mark. We've got a well-defined plan at present. I would say, as we go through the year, and we see where some of our other partners are, then that might be a catalyst for us to open that option up again. But at this point, in my discussions with them, and in the last 24, 48 hours, there's no indication at all that the Browse partners want to waiver from the current scope. They're obviously supportive of a delay in the project. What we haven't done is sat down and talked about how long that delay will be. At the moment, we're just assuming it will be a few months, not years. But let's let the year play out. Let's -- we might be sitting here in 9 months' time having a different conversation on a number of projects and what companies are doing. So I would just say whether -- it really is going to depend on how the year plays out, Mark. And the good thing about it is we're not committed in any substantial way to any of our major projects at the moment. So we're in a fortunate position where we've got a full playbook in front of us as we go through the year. And that's what today's call is about, is really saying we're just -- we're trying to just clear the deck, so to speak. We've got all the pieces that we can bring in. We've got a plan, we've got a base plan. But that plan is always subject to market conditions. And if market conditions stay the way they are today, of course, there's going to be substantial change, not just within our plans but within industry.
Mark Samter
analystWith the BHP, the tolling agreement, obviously, had a drop-dead date, which is imminent. Do you push the drop-dead date or do you have to start those negotiations again as and when?
Peter Coleman
executiveNo, no. We just -- we've just mutually agreed to move that date out. So that's all fine. There's no issues at all in those commercial negotiations, which is final, papering it up. We expect to be finished sometime in second quarter on those negotiations. And there's no opening up for the price or anything. So we're just finalizing all of the ancillary agreements to it. And then BHP and ourselves are both committed to getting the project ready for sanction. And that sanction, we should be ready sometime in third quarter of this year. And then we'll just wait for the market conditions to stabilize and allow us to have confidence that we can move forward.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from James Byrne with Citi.
James Byrne
analystThanks for the disclosure, and I just wanted to wish you the best for ongoing safe operations over the next few months. So I note that -- I just wanted to ask, actually, the Pluto foundation contract, which is about to go through a price review. In the context of a very low oil price in the past, you have some protection there from the floor pricing structure. Is it a safe assumption to assume that through the price reopen now that you will lose that price floor in the contracts?
Peter Coleman
executiveWell, it's a price review, James. The -- so, no, we don't lose the price floor. Although I'd need to go back and -- to clarify that. The -- I think we've talked about the slope previously. But I -- the floor -- well, the floor mechanism is under discussion, so what that floor mechanism looks like is definitely under discussion, but it has been for some period of time. So -- until we can agree to it, of course, we continue to get paid at the old pricing. So nothing's going to change from a revenue point of view until we've agreed all of that, but I just haven't seen it, to be quite frank. And I think anything we're doing at the moment is quite uncertain with respect to any contract negotiations. So I know that's not a great answer. All I'd say is the status quo will remain until we've resolved this. And the pricing and the floor mechanisms, both the cap and collar, are part of that negotiation.
James Byrne
analystOkay. It -- my understanding was that price review was timed for April of this year. It sounds like perhaps that's not the case? When do you expect to conclude that price review?
Peter Coleman
executiveWell, we really haven't engaged for the last couple of months on the price review. I mean, we were close. There were some contracts at North West Shelf that were agreed that we were very comfortable with that would set the expectations for that price review. And we're -- but we haven't seriously engaged -- reengaged on that at the moment. And so we've just got to be -- we've just got to wait, to be honest, James, until we [ -- to answer your question ]. And just for clarification, the floor on the contract went in the previous price review. So we don't have that floor in the contract anymore at Pluto. It's a -- and I wouldn't call it a floor, it's an S-curve. So we had it in the first price period, and then we've had an S-curve since then. So I wouldn't call it a floor. It's not a hard floor.
James Byrne
analystGot it. Okay. On your outlook for LNG. I cast my mind back to your 2018 investor briefing day. You had a chart there on the demand forecast by region and by far and away, the largest region there was other Asia, the -- all of the small, emerging markets, ex China that in -- that are small in isolation but large in aggregate. I'm wondering if you think that there is any permanent demand destruction as a result of coronavirus, either from much higher U.S. dollar funding costs to build the new infrastructure or perhaps lower cost of fuel oil in generation that may further implicate your ability to market volume in the medium term, noting you mentioned on the supplier side Qatar and potentially Novatek placing volume in the short term?
Peter Coleman
executiveLook, that's a difficult one to answer sitting here at the end of March, to be quite frank with you. Obviously, it's a question we've got to look at as we go through the year. We -- with respect to the demand, we've got to be a term optimist. We think the fundamentals on the demand is still there. And so we're not predicting permanent demand disruption at the moment. In fact, as you know, low prices often trigger even more demand. Now there's obviously some issues in the market. At the moment, India has closed its ports, so that's creating some disruption there, but we expect that will come back quickly. The U.S. dollar -- the U.S. will work very, very hard to drive down the U.S. dollar. The Fed will do that. The Fed's already said it's going to do that. The U.S. doesn't want a strong U.S. dollar. It benefits obviously during crisis but when things get back to normal, the strong U.S. dollar is not good for the U.S. with respect to its own trade balances. So I expect through whatever mechanism, quantitative easing, probably the most likely one because it's only lever that they have at the moment is that the Fed's going to try really, really hard to get that U.S. dollar down. So I don't see that [ what you said, a lot of strengthening happening ] in the marketplace. So look, it's going to come back. It'll be in fits and starts, we're just not sure where that's going. On fuel oil and so forth, all I would say is climate change is not going away. It's real. And so substitution of other fossil fuels into the energy mix, so I think it's just unsustainable no matter what the pricing point is. There might be some short-term switching, but certainly not long-term structural build out in that area. And I can assure you, as we've been talking to investors recently, the ESG guys haven't forgot about the long term. So this short-term perturbation in the market that we're all dealing with, those responsible, from an ESG point of view, are still very much focused on the long-term resilience of business. So it's really hard, [ I don't have a crystal ball ], it's just a bit foggy for me at the moment, to be quite frank.
James Byrne
analystOkay. That's a good segue into my last question around ESG and Browse. The further that this project gets pushed out, the higher and higher the stranding risk potential for the fields. Wanted you to perhaps make a remark on that, which actually plays into Mark's earlier question around Scarborough's viability to go into the North West Shelf?
Peter Coleman
executiveLook, I think the key thing for Browse is the further it goes out, then the more luckily that sequestration will be part of the base plan for Browse. And we're looking at options now around sequestration, not just in the immediate field area, but other aquifers some distance from Browse. So I think what you'll find is that's where it will be. Now the breakeven cost for that at the moment is just north of $100 per tonne. But you can see a world where that will be a license to operate requirement for Browse. Now it doesn't affect the economics in a material way. I hate to say that to a regulator but I mean, it's very important. But I think [ Browse ] is robust enough for that. But -- so I think rather than parking the facility, remember, it's got a substantial amount of liquids associated with it. I think you may see a revised development plan, and that's more likely to include the sequestration from day 1 in the project rather than the current plan, which is about after year 10. Thanks, James. I think I've got 2 more on the line. So if we can just take those 2, that will be great.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Joseph Wong with UBS.
Joseph Wong
analystJust kind of 2 quick questions. The first one, I guess, is in regards to your available debt facilities. I understand you said you have a bank covenant, but just wanted to clarify if you have other bank covenants similar to your peers, like an interest cover ratio on that?
Peter Coleman
executiveSherry?
Sherry Duhe
executiveYes. Sorry, can you repeat that?
Joseph Wong
analystI just wanted to understand in your announcement, you talked about -- hello?
Sherry Duhe
executiveYes, sorry. I can hear. Go ahead.
Joseph Wong
analystYes. Just wanted to -- yes, just wanted to clarify your banking debt covenants. In your release, you mentioned a gearing covenant. I just wanted to clarify if you have an interest cover as well as part of your debt package?
Sherry Duhe
executiveSo mainly it's gearing, and so we would have to be at a really high level before our covenants would kick in. It would be like, over 70%. So we go nowhere near that. And there's no interest cover, there's no interest covenant.
Joseph Wong
analystSo there's no interest covenant?
Sherry Duhe
executiveThat's correct.
Joseph Wong
analystOkay. Yes. And just wondering, in terms of your hedging profile, is the way to think about is it a kind of a swap contract? Or is it -- you talk about a combination of swaps and call options. I'm just trying to understand how to think about $33 hedge?
Sherry Duhe
executiveYes. So we put swaps in to come up with the minimum fixed price on it, and then we put call options in for the second half of the year to participate in the upside above a certain dollar level per barrel.
Joseph Wong
analystOkay, cool. And maybe just a one last quick one, just on your OpEx savings. Can you provide any details of what that entails and how sustainable that savings are because you've reduced a lot of your staff, but can you kind of, I guess, progress that for 12 months?
Sherry Duhe
executiveYes. So on the OpEx, what we've done, and we'll continue to look at as we go forward in time, this is just a first pass at that. We've really looked at a lot of our discretionary activities beyond just the license to operate and keeping our facilities running. So like we've done with CapEx, we've looked at anything that is not committed and therefore, we have flexibility around the pace at which we do that or actually some of these things even just stopping right now. So it's some things like continuous improvement activities across the business, functional support to that, et cetera. And it really is just across the board. We also are seeing a savings in terms of the Australian-U.S. dollar exchange, given that a larger portion of our operating costs are in Aussie dollars.
Peter Coleman
executiveJoseph, I think the key here is as we get used to this, we're going to try to make this the new norm. Now obviously, there's an element of deferral. We'll have to see whether that deferral can be permanent, but there is an opportunity for us here now to kind of make some of this the way we're working and the choices we make, the discretionary decisions that we make with respect to our activities is trying to make as much of that the new norm for us in the way that we work. So we are -- we have an appropriate level of -- yes, we have an appropriate level of activity. We're not cut back to the bone at all. So we're very comfortable at operating at this level for an extended period of time.
Operator
operatorYour next question comes from Helen Clark with Aspermont.
Helen Clark
attendeePeter, Sherry, I was at AOG in Perth 2 weeks ago, and there was still a lot of talk about the LNG job task force turning Perth into an LNG support hub. How do you think all of this is going to impact that, looking at the longer term?
Peter Coleman
executiveI don't think it's going to impact it in the longer term. Obviously, there are some short-term activities that we'll need to sit down and discuss with the premier when he gets some time as well. So I'd say, look, everybody at the moment is into triage and just trying to stabilize their businesses. And then what we'll have to do then is sit with the premier around what the vision is for LNG support in the state. Now I would go back and say, there is a significant amount of LNG-based activities in the state already, notwithstanding the fact that Woodside had growth plans at Scarborough and Browse. And so if you look at the number of trains that are now producing in the state, it's a significant increase over what it was even 5 years ago. So there is a very, very large base here already that will continue that work around developing Perth as an LNG hub. It will be more focused on the support activities longer term rather than construction, but support is longer-term jobs whereas construction, as you know, is quite transient. That's all the time we have today, everybody. Thanks for joining in on the call. As you can see, we're working hard to make sure that the business is well preserved and is resilient through whatever the next 12 months throw up at us. As I said, we've cleared the way, that we have lots of optionality in our business as we move forward. We'll prepare all of our projects, so they are decision-ready with that optionality. And we'll wait till market conditions improve, and we can see a stable outlook for us. So again, thanks very much for your interest and your support in Woodside.
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