Promoted, when invitations were mailed out a few weeks ago, as a reason to celebrate the foundation of the company as Woodside Lakes Entrance Oil back in the early 1950s, the event has taken on an ominous twist given recent events both in and out of the boardroom.

The biggest development was the announcement of the long-awaited exit from the Woodside share register by the global petroleum major, Royal Dutch Shell.

Attracting less publicity, but potentially as important, was a well-sourced story in The Australian that up to 800 Woodside staff might lose their jobs as part of a wide-ranging drive to cut costs at a business, which has promised much and delivered little over the past decade.

There are reasons for Woodside's lacklustre results in the field, which include failure to negotiate a way through the government impasse that has mothballed the Sunrise LNG project in the Timor Sea, delayed the Browse LNG project off the Kimberley coast, and seen a walk-out from participation in the Leviathan LNG project off Israel.

If Woodside was playing baseball it would have have three strikes against its name and would be walking back to the dugout - which is what the unlucky 800 might be doing sometime after the July 3 "celebrations".

The same "failure to launch" criticism cannot be levelled at the financial performance of the company though a super-hot dividend payout policy that has put the stock on a 5% yield (better than some banks) is unnatural in the investment world where oil companies are supposed to be growth stocks and banks yield plays.

Times at Woodside are obviously changing, and changing quite dramatically. The failure to deliver growth options is a black mark against management. The generous dividend policy is popular with self-funded retirees chasing yield, and the exit of Shell could be setting the company up as a takeover target.

Slashing the company's head count by 20%, which is what 800 jobs boils down, is a signal that anyone wanting to bid had best be prepared to pay a high price because cost-cutting is a way of maintaining the company's share price when all else fails.

Potential buyers of Woodside, after it loses Shell as its cornerstone shareholder with a big blocking stake that kept raiders away for the past 20 years, include two obvious suspects: BHP Billiton which has a long association with Woodside's foundation asset, the North West Shelf LNG project, and Chevron, which is outgrowing Woodside in Australia's northwest oil province, but actually has a better pedigree.

Chevron's roots in the region can be traced back to its time as California Asiatic when it was a co-founder of WA Petroleum and was issued with an exploration licenses covering most of onshore and offshore WA.

Whether it is interested in a Woodside raid is unknown but it was interesting that one of Australia's better connected investment bankers, Tom Elliott, floated the idea in a recent analysis of potential mega takeover bids.

"The company's North West Shelf projects have created substantial value, yet a management group that stands still for too long eventually gets replaced by a more aggressive competitor," Elliott wrote.

In terms of price, he reckons that a bid will have to be pitched at more than $50 a share, about 20% higher than the latest price of the stock.

Not many of Elliott's rivals seem to subscribe to his takeover thesis with Woodside stuck in the sin bin of under-performing stocks if current recommendations are considered.

A quick survey late last week showed that of the seven top investment banks that cover Woodside, none have it as a buy. Three rate it as "underperform" (Credit Suisse, BA Merrill Lynch and Macquarie), and four have it as "neutral" (JP Morgan, Citi, UBS and Deutsche Bank).

Collectively, the seven banks have 12-month price targets for the stock of $39.99, which is about 3.4% less than its Friday close.

Looked at in totality, Woodside is a company that has tried hard and, despite a few notable successes in the past 10 years, has failed to deliver on its promises.

It is very much a case of being a company that over-promoted itself in its small home-town market of WA, and failed to appreciate that in terms of the worldwide oil and gas industry it is a minnow.

Now comes the time to pay the price, which Elliott suggests is what happens when management fails.

Unfortunately, before management is called to account, there will be blood-letting among the lower ranks - but only after the Last Supper.