Back in 2023, we secured a contract with Woodside Energy to help them plan future hydrogen and ammonia facilities. The brief was straightforward in theory, complex in practice: how do you build a system that helps a major energy company make decisions about multibillion-dollar investments in new energy?
The challenge was that Woodside was moving into territory they hadn’t operated in before. New process technology. New energy markets. Different fiscal environments. They needed more than a spreadsheet.
What We Built
We gave them a simulation and optimisation tool that models the entire lifecycle of a facility. Plant sizing. Power sourcing. Production costs. Carbon intensity. All in one model.
The idea was that they could run scenarios, compare options, and understand both the technical and economic performance of potential projects before committing a cent to construction.
The engineering folks call it RAM analysis; reliability, availability, maintainability. We just called it good decision making.
A New Problem
That hydrogen work gave us a lot of knowledge. And now we’ve taken that same thinking and applied it somewhere new.
Woodside has a portfolio of oil and gas assets, and they’re also developing new energy products and lower carbon services. Their decarbonisation strategy is public and clear: invest in new energy products, reduce emissions, and make decisions that are both commercially sensible and environmentally responsible.
The question they brought us was: can you apply the same logic to our natural gas plants?
Same problem, different context. How do you green existing assets? What’s the right configuration? What are the operating trade-offs between economics and emissions?
Where We Are Now
We’re now moving into a new program of work with Woodside. Not hydrogen this time, but still firmly on their decarbonisation journey. Still the same kind of optimisation thinking, just applied to a different part of the puzzle.
It’s good work. And it’s exactly where we want to be.
