The Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL) share price jumped 4.15% today to close at $24.36.
The uplift comes amid a robust performance in the energy sector today. The S&P/ASX 200 Energy Index (ASX: XEJ) was the highest performing sector on Wednesday, up 3% at the close.
While no official news has been released from the oil and gas producer since December, let's check what's been going on with the Woodside share price lately…
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A busy month for Woodside
Woodside is Australia's largest oil and gas company, focused on exploration and production. And it's only going to get bigger.
In mid-December, Woodside announced the appointment of a new CFO and executive vice president.
The following day, the company announced that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had approved its acquisition of BHP Group Ltd's (ASX: BHP) petroleum business.
This will mean that two of the four largest domestic natural gas suppliers in the country will combine, which could make Woodside a top 10 global independent energy giant.
Following the announcement, the Woodside share price experienced a slight increase and then dropped by 2.34% in the days afterwards. Over the same time frame, BHP shares increased by 1%.
In other recent announcements, an environmental lobby group took court action against Woodside just before Christmas over its Scarborough LNG site.
The group argued that the WA Environmental Protection Agency accepted changes to Woodside's project application, effectively allowing it to produce more gas without assessing the impact.
But despite the court proceedings, Woodside's share price has continued to climb by 12% since the announcement.
Woodside's latest EPA proposal
Just on Monday, the WA Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Woodside had proposed to begin construction of a 500-megawatt solar facility near its LNG operations at Karratha.
The project is estimated to cover 975.6 hectares (ha) within an allocated area of 1100.3 ha.
According to the proposal documents, the Woodside Solar Facility would be able to cut "up to 100 kt CO2e" greenhouse gas emissions per year.
A report in the Sydney Morning Herald claims this represents a cut of about 1.5% of the emissions from Woodside's Pluto LNG plant once its Scarborough operation is expanded.
The proposal is currently within a 7-day period open to public comment.
Within the last month, Woodside has seen its share price increase by around 9%.
Woodside share price snapshot
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020, the Woodside share price dropped 55% in just over two months. It was trading for $35.86 on 10 January and plummeted to a low of $16 a share on 20 March 2020.
In the last 12 months, Woodside shares slipped 3.75% but have clawed back 7.19% in the past week.
However, the team at Morgans recently pitched the company as a buy due to the BHP merger, and its forecasted dividend.
Based on today's Woodside share price, the company has a market capitalisation of $22.6 billion, and a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 12.31.
The company has 969 million shares outstanding.
