S&P affirms Woodside Petroleum

Standard & Poor's said it affirmed an A- corporate credit and associated debt ratings on Woodside Petroleum Ltd. following the company's completion of its institutional offer and the expectation that the remaining Royal Dutch Shell plc (AA/stable/A-1+) commitment of about A$400 million will be received together with the retail offer in mid-February 2010.

The outlook is negative. Ratings were removed from CreditWatch with negative implications, where they were placed on Nov. 20.

"In our opinion, completion of Woodside's equity raising will improve the company's liquidity position, alleviate pressure associated with cost overruns at its Pluto project and give the company's balance sheet some headroom to weather the commissioning of Pluto, and provide funds for future growth projects," S&P analyst May Zhong said in a statement.

"However, we view the A$2.5 billion equity raising as relatively modest in the context of the company's large pipeline of possible LNG projects."

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