Chief executive Don Voelte told a results briefing yesterday that the Perth-based petroleum major was considering a range of options for its African business, including trading the assets with other companies for interests in other projects, spinning it off into a separate company, or selling them off.

“We're in the process of restructuring our exploration portfolio,” Voelte said.

“We plan to refocus on our LNG business and other areas which are more attractive.”

In addition to developing its Australian gas assets, Woodside wanted to move into Atlantic Basin LNG, he said.

This is not the first time Voelte has talked about restructuring the business.

At Woodside’s AGM in April he said the company was looking at selling or shelving some of its non-strategic assets to control rising costs.

Woodside’s African assets include the embattled Chinguetti oil project in Mauritania, where production has plummeted to about 15,000 barrels per day from 70,000bopd since coming online in February last year.

It also has exploration ventures in Kenya and Libya, and owns a stake in the producing Ohanet natural gas venture in Algeria.

Voelte said the project review was not being done in response to disappoiinting results.

"It's not because of failure," he said.

"It's a selection process of where we want to go forward. We have created value in Africa, but is it something we want to go forward with versus the opportunities we have in LNG?"

Last month, Woodside approved the 4.8 million tonnes per annum (MMtpa) Pluto LNG project, off Western Australia, which it estimated would cost more than $A12 billion.

The company is also evaluating options for the proposed 10MMtpa Browse LNG project off the north-west coast of Australia, and had acquired two new exploration blocks adjacent to its Browse gas fields earlier this year.

In addition, the fifth processing train at its North West Shelf project is expected to start production in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Yesterday, Woodside said the NWSV expansion was facing cost pressures and flagged a final cost of $2.6 billion.