Woodside plans at least 500 job cuts. How many will fall in WA?

The broader direction is clearer: Woodside wants a smaller workforce supporting a larger production business, with more value extracted from its assets. These are planned reductions, not confirmation that 500 people have already lost their jobs. And “at least” makes 500 a minimum, not a final total.⁠8

The announcement accompanied Woodside’s Capital Markets Day in Sydney and a company ASX announcement dated 5 November. The reduction is described as roughly one position in ten. Reuters, in reporting published by Offshore Engineer, cites 4,693 employees at December 2025; that is a historical snapshot, not a verified headcount for the day the cuts were announced.⁠3⁠12⁠8

About 80 per cent of Woodside’s workforce is based in Australia, with the vast majority of those employees in WA. Its Australian liquefied natural gas operations are principally centred off the state’s coast. That concentration makes the announcement consequential for WA workers, but it does not establish where the cuts will fall. Applying Australia’s workforce share to the global reduction would produce an unsupported local job-loss estimate.⁠1

Nor is 2028 a disclosed redundancy deadline. It is when recurring annual savings are intended to begin. Woodside has not supplied the affected roles, an Australian allocation or a firm implementation schedule—the details employees need to distinguish a company-wide warning from a decision about their own position.⁠1⁠13

The savings figures require care. Xinhua’s 5 November report of Woodside’s ASX statement identifies US$400 million in annual structural cost reductions from 2028. ABC’s report the same day gives $550 million annually without explicitly identifying the currency. Their relationship is not established: the second figure cannot safely be labelled an Australian-dollar conversion, nor treated as proof of a different company target.⁠13⁠1

The programme also includes portfolio and supply-chain changes, so the full savings target is not a payroll-saving figure. Under chief executive Liz Westcott, Woodside has sold its Trinidad and Tobago gas fields and its stake in Greater Sunrise, and is looking to sell a clean ammonia project.⁠13⁠8

“Our priority now is to extract more value from our portfolio,” Westcott said in a statement ahead of Capital Markets Day. Woodside’s production ambition is to increase output by 32 per cent to 280 million barrels of oil equivalent by 2032—a measure combining oil and gas. That is a target, not output already achieved.⁠8

Scarborough is central to that growth story. Westcott said the project, about 375 kilometres off the Pilbara coast, was 99 per cent complete and weeks from shipping its first LNG cargo. Woodside also identifies Browse, off the Kimberley coast, as a growth option. Approval to extend North West Shelf operations until 2070 helps open a route to developing Browse; it does not remove the project’s remaining hurdles.⁠1

Beyond Australia, the expansion includes Trion oil in the Gulf of Mexico and the 16.5-million-tonne-a-year Louisiana LNG facility, due online by 2029. Woodside has signed a 20-year agreement to supply QatarEnergy with up to three million tonnes annually from Louisiana from 2030, while still seeking to sell down its stake in the project.⁠8

Those ambitions matter to the interpretation of the cuts. This is not an announcement that Woodside intends to produce less energy. It is a restructuring aimed at improving investor returns while increasing output. But a growth plan does not, by itself, demonstrate why each proposed job must disappear or how the remaining workforce will deliver it.

Shareholders are also being asked to accept a changed bargain. Since 2013, Woodside had paid dividends of up to 80 per cent of underlying net profit. The replacement policy uses 20 to 40 per cent of adjusted operating cash flow: a 20 per cent base, with another 20 per cent available for extra dividends or share buybacks.⁠8

Those percentages cannot be read as a simple halving of every investor’s dividend. Profit and cash flow are different measures, and buybacks return money by purchasing company shares rather than paying a dividend to everyone holding them. Income-oriented investors could nevertheless receive less. Van Eck investment executive Jamie Hannah told Reuters that linking payouts to cash flow was “probably economically better”, while warning that the lower headline payout ratio could leave those investors worse off.⁠8

Woodside is targeting investment returns of 12 to 15 per cent across projects by the middle of the next decade. Its previous thresholds exceeded 15 per cent for offshore oil, 12 per cent for gas and 10 per cent for new energy. These are management’s financial objectives, not guaranteed outcomes—and not evidence that any particular redundancy is unavoidable.⁠8

In WA, the announcement follows other resources-sector employment losses. Hancock Iron Ore confirmed cuts at Roy Hill in June without disclosing the total. In October, BHP announced plans to cut up to 300 jobs across its Pilbara iron ore operations. Woodside adds another substantial proposed reduction, though its local share remains unknown.⁠1

WA Treasurer Rita Saffioti said she was “very disappointed” but maintained that the government would continue “to bat for gas”. “We are a resources state, gas is an integral part of our energy supply, and let’s keep supporting the gas sector as part of our overall economic vision,” she said. Her response linked support for resources projects with employment, but supplied neither a local allocation of the cuts nor a commitment protecting affected positions.⁠1

WA Greens spokesperson Sophie McNeill called the cutbacks proof of a fossil-fuel company “in decline” and opposed drilling at Scott Reef as part of Browse. Resources analyst Peter Strachan rejected the decline argument, pointing to high oil prices linked to the Iran war and describing Westcott’s approach as strongly focused on shareholder value. These are competing readings of the strategy, not answers about whose jobs will go.⁠1

For employees, that distinction is the unresolved heart of the announcement. Woodside has laid out the minimum global reduction and the intended financial destination. What workers still need is the route: which positions, where, when decisions take effect, and what options affected employees will have.