Incorporated on 26 July 1954 as Woodside (Lakes Entrance) Oil Co NL, the company took its name from the small town of Woodside in Australia's southern-most mainland state, Victoria, with plans to explore a 520sqkm strip of land along Ninety Mile Beach in the south Gippsland region.

 

The company's initial 375,000-pound (A$937,000) share issue in September 1954 was over-subscribed by more than 200,000 pounds (A$500,000).

 

In 1956, led by Chairman Geoff Donaldson and Managing Director Rees Withers, Woodside secured the first offshore exploration licence to be granted in Victoria – a 2600sqkm stretch off Ninety Mile Beach that extended 2km into Bass Strait. Woodside was drilling in water up to 60 metres deep, an unremarkable depth today, but a world-record drilling depth in the 1950s.

 

After 10 years without success in southern Australia, Woodside was awarded exploration rights in June 1963 over more than 367,000sqkm off north-western Australia in what is known as the North West Shelf.

 

Exploration drilling began in 1967 and major gas and condensate discoveries were made in 1971 at Scott Reef, 425km north of Broome, and North Rankin and Angel, north of Dampier in Western Australia. In 1972, the Goodwyn gas and condensate field was discovered to the west of North Rankin.

 

These fields contained reserves of nearly 50 trillion cubic feet of gas and provided the basis of the A$19 billion North West Shelf Venture, Australia's largest resource project.

 

A contract with the State Energy Commission of Western Australia for the supply of domestic gas to industries and homes was signed in September 1980, and deliveries began in August 1984.

 

Today, Woodside has operations on five continents. It is Australia's largest publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production company and one of the nation's most successful explorers, developers and producers of oil and gas.