On 9 December 2025, Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS, NYSE: WDS) is trading around A$25 a share, leaving investors to juggle three big variables: labour unrest at its Pluto LNG 2 expansion, a massive pipeline of LNG growth projects out to the 2030s, and sharply diverging views on whether the stock is cheap or a classic value trap.
Below is a structured rundown of the latest news, forecasts and analysis around Woodside as of today.
Woodside share price today: about A$25, big yield, modest growth
Woodside shares last closed at A$25.20 on the ASX on Monday, 8 December 2025, up 0.2% on the day, with intraday moves of about 1.3%. [1]
Short‑term technical service StockInvest classifies the stock as a “sell candidate” on a weakening technical picture, even though it sits in the middle of a rising short‑term trend and has risen in six of the past ten sessions. [2]
Key current metrics:
- ASX price: ~A$25.20
- NYSE ADR price: about US$16.5 per share as of 8 December [3]
- Market capitalisation: ~A$47.9 billion on the ASX, ~US$31–32 billion in New York [4]
- Trailing P/E: roughly 10–12x earnings [5]
- Price-to-book: about 0.9x, below stated book value per share of A$28.39 [6]
- Trailing dividend yield: about 6.6–6.7%, based on DPS of A$1.67 over the last 12 months and the current price [7]
Over the past year, Woodside has slightly outperformed the Australian market, with one‑year returns a few percentage points ahead of the ASX 200 and the broader energy sector, even though the share price is still off post‑merger highs. [8]
Today’s broader market context doesn’t make life easier. The ASX is drifting lower ahead of the Reserve Bank’s final interest‑rate decision of the year, while a roughly 2% overnight drop in oil to around US$62.50 a barrel has dragged energy names like Woodside and Santos into the red. [9]
Fresh 9 December call: Morningstar says Woodside trades at “nearly half” fair value
Today’s standout new valuation signal comes via Morningstar, summarised in a ShareCafe piece published on 9 December 2025. Morningstar argues that a recent pullback has brought Australian equities back to “fair value” overall – but not in every sector.
In the energy sector, Morningstar’s strategist notes that:
- Woodside Energy and Santos are trading at nearly half of Morningstar’s fair value estimates, making them among the most undervalued large caps on the Australian market in their universe. [10]
In plain language: on Morningstar’s numbers, the market is assigning roughly a 50% discount to what their analysts think Woodside is worth. That’s far more bullish than consensus broker forecasts (we’ll get to those), and it frames today’s price as closer to distressed value than boring blue‑chip.
Morningstar’s broader equity view is cautious on banks – which they see as expensive – but constructive on energy, healthcare and defensives, which they say now look attractively priced after 2025’s wobble. [11]
Short‑term trading view: technical downgrade but 3‑month upside scenario
The StockInvest.us technical model, updated after Monday’s close, gives a very different flavour to today’s Morningstar‑style valuation optimism. [12]
Highlights from their short‑term forecast:
- WDS gained 0.2% on 8 December (A$25.15 → A$25.20) on falling volume – a classic divergence that often precedes near‑term weakness. [13]
- Their system downgraded Woodside to a “Sell candidate” as of 8 December, citing sell signals from both short‑ and long‑term moving averages and a negative MACD. [14]
- Despite that, they still model an 11.5% rise over the next three months, with a 90% probability range of A$26.43–A$30.90 if the current trend persists. [15]
- For trading on Tuesday 9 December, they expect an opening around A$25.20 and an intraday range of roughly A$24.99–A$25.41 (±1.7%). [16]
So the machines are grumpy about momentum, but even their “sell candidate” scenario assumes the stock could drift higher over a multi‑month window.
Latest company communication: Sustainability Focus Session 2025
On 8 December 2025, Woodside lodged an ASX announcement and corresponding U.S. 6‑K filing titled “Sustainability Focus Session 2025”, highlighting an investor event centred on climate strategy and ESG disclosures. [17]
While the filing doesn’t change earnings guidance, it underlines a few themes that matter for the share price:
- The company is very aware of investor scrutiny on emissions, carbon capture and alignment with climate goals.
- Management is keen to frame gas and LNG as part of a “transition” energy mix, even while acknowledging that the vast bulk of its production well into the 2030s will remain fossil fuels. [18]
- Woodside is clearly trying to de‑risk its ESG narrative while still pressing ahead with big, long‑lived gas projects.
For investors, this is less about near‑term numbers and more about how long regulators, lenders and big customers will keep signing up for high‑carbon infrastructure – a debate that’s already very live around some of Woodside’s planned projects.
The LNG megaproject pipeline: Scarborough, Pluto 2, Louisiana LNG, Trion and Greater Sunrise
If you own Woodside, you’re basically buying a portfolio of big, lumpy energy projects. The past few months have brought a lot of fresh detail.
Scarborough & Pluto Train 2: 2026 LNG start still on track – strike risk is the new wildcard
Woodside’s Scarborough gas field and Pluto Train 2 expansion in Western Australia remain the core near‑term growth engine.
In its third‑quarter 2025 report, Woodside said the Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 projects were 91% complete at the end of September (excluding Pluto Train 1 modifications), with first LNG cargo still targeted for the second half of 2026. [19]
Key Q3 project details:
- Scarborough floating production unit commissioning is underway.
- All subsea infrastructure installation and testing is complete.
- Drilling of development wells is progressing in line with pre‑drill expectations. [20]
But on 4 December, Reuters reported that 99% of Offshore Alliance union members and roughly 400 Electrical Trades Union members have voted in favour of strike action at the Pluto LNG 2 construction site, seeking a 30% pay rise and arguing pay is far below Chevron’s Wheatstone project for similar work. [21]
A prolonged protected strike could:
- Slow or disrupt work at the 5‑million‑tonne‑per‑year Pluto 2 expansion.
- Threaten the 2H 2026 first‑cargo timetable, or at least eat into schedule and budget contingency. [22]
Investors now have to factor in labour‑market risk on top of the usual engineering and regulatory hurdles.
Louisiana LNG: $17.5 billion “game‑changer” in the U.S. Gulf
Across the Pacific, Woodside is in the thick of building Louisiana LNG, its largest project ever:
- Woodside describes it as a US$17.5 billion LNG export facility in Louisiana, with three initial trains totaling 16.5 million tonnes per year of capacity by 2029. [23]
- A company update in late September celebrated “breaking ground” and said work on the first LNG train is already more than 22% complete, with about 900 construction workers on site and roughly 85% of the construction budget being spent in the U.S. [24]
In October, Woodside also announced a partnership with U.S. midstream giant Williams, which includes long‑term LNG offtake and infrastructure cooperation, helping to underpin marketing and financing for the project. [25]
At its Capital Markets Day, Woodside said Louisiana LNG is expected to be its best investment prospect in economic terms, and is planning a second phase that would ultimately lift export capacity to 27.5 million tonnes per year. [26]
The catch? Macquarie and others point out that a large chunk of U.S. LNG volumes from 2027‑28 onward look “largely uncontracted”, leaving Woodside exposed if gas markets turn out softer than expected. [27]
Trion and Beaumont New Ammonia
Other important moving parts include:
- Trion oil field (Mexico): 43% complete by Q3, with fabrication of the floating production unit hull, topsides and storage unit underway. Trion is part of Woodside’s plan to keep oil in the portfolio and diversify away from pure LNG. [28]
- Beaumont New Ammonia (U.S.): 97% complete at the end of Q3, with first ammonia production targeted for late 2025, and final project completion and remaining acquisition payments expected in 2026. [29]
Greater Sunrise and East Timor: politics, pipelines and patience
On the long‑stalled Greater Sunrise fields in the Timor Sea, there has finally been movement:
- In late November, Woodside and East Timor agreed to study sending gas to a new 5‑Mtpa LNG plant in Timor‑Leste, aiming for first LNG in 2032–2035. [30]
- East Timor’s President José Ramos‑Horta said on 3 December that improved trust between Timor‑Leste, Australia and Woodside has revived hopes that the project will proceed, even though an onshore plant in Timor is likely to cost about US$5 billion more than an Australian option. [31]
Woodside has dropped its insistence on piping Sunrise gas to Darwin, but it still hasn’t formally committed to the Timor‑Leste onshore design. The project thus sits at the intersection of geopolitics, development policy and LNG economics – highly strategic, but far from de‑risked.
Browse: criticised as “risky and redundant”
The Browse gas project, another potential backfill for Woodside’s North West Shelf LNG facilities, faces heavy external criticism.
A detailed November report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) brands Browse “high cost, high emissions, uncompetitive and unnecessary.” Key points from IEEFA’s work: [32]
- Browse domestic gas could cost over four times as much as existing WA domestic gas supply.
- Browse LNG delivered to North Asia may be around 60% more expensive than Qatari LNG, likely too high to support coal‑to‑gas switching in Asia.
- The field’s high CO₂ content and reliance on carbon capture and storage could push costs higher and add up to 6.8 million tonnes of CO₂‑equivalent emissions a year, or 3–4% of Australia’s projected 2035 emissions.
IEEFA concludes that Browse risks becoming a “high‑cost, high‑emission stranded asset” if global LNG markets are oversupplied in the 2030s. Woodside, for its part, sees Browse as an important backfill option; investors are left to decide whose model they trust more.
2025 financial performance: softer revenue, strong production and still‑big dividends
Woodside’s 2025 scorecard so far is a classic commodity story: volumes look healthy, but weaker prices bite.
Half‑year 2025 results
For the first half of 2025, Woodside reported: [33]
- Underlying NPAT: US$1.25 billion, down 24% on the prior year.
- Reported NPAT: about US$1.3 billion.
- Total production: 99.2 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), with “exceptional” performance from the Sangomar oil project and strong LNG reliability (~96%).
- Unit production cost: down to US$7.7/boe (from US$8.3).
- Gearing: 19.5%, in the middle of Woodside’s 10–20% target range, with US$8.4 billion of liquidity.
- Interim dividend:53 U.S. cents per share, at the high end of its 50–80% payout target, implying a roughly 6.9% annualised yield at mid‑year prices.
CEO Meg O’Neill framed the result as a pivot from exploration towards delivery of a US$39 billion project pipeline, explicitly noting that Woodside will spend less on “new energy” and more on getting Scarborough, Trion, Louisiana LNG and Beaumont to the finish line. [34]
Third quarter 2025: guidance raised despite 9.4% revenue drop
In the third quarter, Woodside:
- Produced 50.8 mmboe, slightly down on the prior year but enough to justify an upgrade in full‑year 2025 production guidance to 192–197 mmboe (from 188–195 mmboe). [35]
- Reported revenue of US$3.36 billion, down 9.4% year‑on‑year as weaker commodity prices offset good operational performance. [36]
The message: operationally, Woodside is executing; financially, it is not immune to lower oil and LNG prices.
Credit quality: Fitch keeps Woodside at BBB+ with stable outlook
Credit‑rating agency Fitch affirmed Woodside’s BBB+ rating with a Stable outlook in late September. [37]
Fitch’s base case:
- EBITDA net leverage rising from about 0.7x in 2024 to around 1.0–1.1x in 2025–26 as capex ramps up, but still comfortable for the rating.
- Strong cash flow from existing assets and sanctioned projects should keep leverage within the target range even through peak spending years.
For equity investors, this matters because a stressed balance sheet can force dividend cuts or asset sales. Fitch’s view suggests Woodside still has room to borrow to fund megaprojects without immediately jeopardising its investment‑grade status.
Long‑term growth story: 50% higher sales by 2032, if everything works
At its Capital Markets Day on 5 November, Woodside laid out a punchy long‑term growth target: [38]
- By 2032, it wants to lift annual sales volumes by about 50% to 300 million boe per year, up from about 203.5 million boe in 2024 – roughly 6% compound annual growth.
- It’s aiming for US$9 billion of free cash flow in 2032, driven by full contributions from Scarborough, Pluto 2, Louisiana LNG, Trion and potential contributions from Greater Sunrise and Browse.
Meg O’Neill acknowledged forecasts for LNG overcapacity later this decade but argued that long‑term offtake contracts signed out to 2030 are evidence that key buyers still want more LNG. She highlighted:
- Louisiana LNG as the highest‑return project in the portfolio.
- Scarborough and Trion as core growth pillars.
- A strategic view that Asian gas demand – particularly in China – can absorb more LNG if prices remain in a workable range. [39]
Notably, Woodside expects over 90% of its production in the 2030s to be fossil fuels, having scaled back several clean‑energy ambitions due to poor economics and shifting U.S. policy settings. [40]
Analyst targets and valuation: from 50% undervalued to “neutral, limited upside”
Different analysts are looking at the same balance of projects, prices and policy – and reaching very different conclusions.
Consensus broker targets: mild upside at best
Data aggregated by Stocksguide and other broker‑consensus services show: [41]
- Around 15 analysts cover Woodside.
- The average 12‑month target price is ~A$25.91, only about 3% above today’s A$25.20 level.
- The target range is wide, with some analysts above A$30 and others closer to A$22–23, highlighting serious disagreement about LNG prices and capital discipline.
In other words, the average broker is basically saying “hold” at current prices.
Macquarie: neutral on Woodside, prefers Santos
A fresh Macquarie sector report, summarised by The Motley Fool on 6 December, puts Woodside squarely in the “good company, tricky setup” bucket: [42]
- Macquarie recommends an underweight position in oil & gas overall, given its bearish view on oil and LNG prices through 2026.
- Beach Energy: rated “underperform” and seen as overvalued.
- Santos: Macquarie’s top pick, rated “outperform” with an A$8.00 price target, implying >20% upside.
- Woodside: rated “neutral” with a A$25.00 target, actually a touch below recent prices.
Macquarie praises Woodside’s project execution:
- Sangomar has performed “exceptionally well” in its first five quarters, and Macquarie now assigns 50% risked value to a Phase 2 development (previously 0%).
- Scarborough is “tracking well” for a 2H 2026 start. [43]
But the broker is explicitly worried about deteriorating gas markets in 2027–28, especially as Woodside advances what it calls a “28 mtpa largely uncontracted US LNG project” – a clear reference to the full build‑out of Louisiana LNG. [44]
Morningstar and Simply Wall St: value case looks stronger
On the more bullish side:
- Morningstar, via today’s ShareCafe article, says Woodside trades at “nearly half” its internal fair value estimate, implying ~50% undervaluation in their discounted cash flow model. [45]
- Simply Wall St’s AnalystConsensusTarget narrative pegs Woodside’s fair value at around A$27.6 per share, based on consensus earnings forecasts and a discounted valuation, implying roughly 9% upside from current prices. [46]
Simply Wall St’s scenario work suggests:
- Low single‑digit revenue growth (~0.7% a year) over the medium term.
- 2028 earnings of about US$2.28 billion, supporting a hypothetical 2028 share price of about US$21.9 (A$27.6 at current FX) if multiples hold. [47]
Technical forecast: rising trend but negative signals
As mentioned earlier, StockInvest is technically cautious:
- It assigns a short‑term “sell” rating, citing moving‑average and MACD sell signals.
- Yet it still expects double‑digit percentage upside within the existing rising trend over three months, under a probabilistic model. [48]
Put together, you get a messy but interesting picture:
- Value‑driven models (Morningstar, some DCF work): Woodside looks cheap.
- Macro‑driven brokers (Macquarie): Woodside is fairly valued but cyclically challenged, with better risk‑reward elsewhere.
- Technical models: worried in the near term, but not screaming “collapse”.
Dividends: still one of the ASX 200’s bigger income cheques
Whatever your view on LNG megaprojects, Woodside remains a high‑yield stock by large‑cap standards:
- Trailing dividend per share is about A$1.67, giving a yield of ~6.6–6.7% at current prices. [49]
- The company is still targeting a 50–80% payout ratio of underlying net profit, and the H1 2025 interim dividend (US$0.53) was at the upper end of that range. [50]
Macquarie notes a similar 6.6% fully franked trailing yield in its comparative work – one of the reasons Woodside still appears on many Australian income investors’ watchlists even when capital‑gains expectations are muted. [51]
The flip side, of course, is that high yields can also signal market scepticism about the durability of those payouts through a full commodity cycle and capex peak.
Key risks from here: prices, projects, politics and climate
Investors reading all this in one gulp will spot a few obvious swing factors:
- Commodity prices & macro:
- Short‑term moves in oil and LNG prices are still the biggest day‑to‑day driver of the share price. The 2% drop in oil that’s dragging Woodside lower today is a neat reminder. [52]
- Macquarie’s call for an underweight in oil & gas is based largely on expectations of softer LNG prices as new global capacity comes on line in 2026–28. [53]
- Megaproject execution risk:
- Contracting and demand for LNG:
- Climate policy, ESG and social licence:
- Browse has become a lightning rod in the climate debate because of its carbon intensity and reliance on carbon capture and offsets. [58]
- Woodside’s Sustainability Focus Session and climate disclosures are partly about keeping banks, insurers and big customers comfortable with long‑dated gas projects. [59]
- Geopolitics:
- Projects like Greater Sunrise involve sensitive diplomacy between Timor‑Leste, Australia and potentially China, with timelines that stretch beyond most analyst models. [60]
None of these risks are new in kind, but several have intensified in the last few weeks: labour unrest, detailed external critique of Browse, and more explicit broker downgrades of long‑term LNG price assumptions.
So is Woodside stock a buy, hold or sell right now?
There’s no single correct label, but the current 9 December 2025 information set points to a fairly clear trade‑off:
- The bull thesis:
- The stock offers a high, fully franked yield around 6–7%. [61]
- Morningstar and several valuation models see the shares as materially undervalued, in Morningstar’s case by nearly 50%. [62]
- Woodside has investment‑grade credit, strong liquidity and a near‑term production growth path via Scarborough and Pluto 2, with longer‑term upside from Louisiana LNG and Trion if executed well. [63]
- The bear thesis:
- Macquarie and other brokers see limited upside at current prices, with the average target not far above A$25 and a specific A$25 target from Macquarie. [64]
- The stock is heavily exposed to LNG prices in the late 2020s, just when a wave of new capacity is expected to hit. [65]
- Projects like Browse and parts of Sunrise face serious cost, emissions and policy risk, which could strand capital or force expensive mitigation. [66]
- Fresh labour unrest at Pluto 2 adds execution risk to a flagship near‑term project. [67]
For income‑focused investors who believe LNG demand will stay robust and policy risk manageable, Woodside on a mid‑single‑digit earnings multiple and near‑7% yield can look like a solid, if volatile, cash‑flow machine.
For more cautious investors worried about the energy transition, oversupplied gas markets and megaproject politics, today’s price may feel more like adequate compensation for high risk than a screaming bargain – which is essentially Macquarie’s neutral stance.
Either way, Woodside in late 2025 is a stock that forces you to have an opinion about how the global gas story plays out into the 2030s, not just where the oil price is next quarter.
References
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