The company originally made its name on the North West Shelf (NWS) after Charles Court, in his capacity as State Development Minister at the time, gave Woodside a massive 376,000 sq km of ocean for a $40,000 commitment, and has continued to focus on developing the area’s lucrative gas and oil fields.

A funtion in Melbourne this week saw former and present management commemorate the company’s development, ahead of its October milestone of its ASX listing 50 years ago.

Now as an equal participant in the BHP Billiton operated WA-255-P Joint Venture, the Eskdale-2 exploration well, located in the Exmouth Sub-basin, gave the parters a boost - yielding a 24 metre gas column and a 13 metre oil column after Eskdale-1 revealed non-commercial hydrocarbons over the primary objective interval.

Even better news for partners was that no oil-water contact was encountered. A Woodside release said analysis of the data was continuing to determine whether the discovery was commercial or not.

The rig has now moved to the Stybarrow-3 appraisal well location 2kms northeast of Stybarrow-1.

As part of the company’s birthday celebrations the board revealed plans to spend over $4 billion on seven major projects in the next four years, without turning to shareholders for funds.

The projects include the two new NWS gas trains; the Sunrise field near East Timor the two Eskdale WA developments; Otway Basin gas and the massive Mauritania developments offshore West Africa.