Woodside hires Mexico Pacific CEO Sarah Bairstow as Louisiana LNG head

Australia’s largest independent oil and gas company Woodside Energy has appointed Sarah Bairstow, the CEO of Mexico Pacific, to head its Louisiana liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the United States.

Bairstow will join Woodside in early May as Senior Vice President at Louisiana LNG, a Woodside spokesperson confirmed, according to Reuters  and Bloomberg.

The appointment follows Woodside’s announcement earlier this month of agreeing to sell a 40% stake in Louisiana LNG to US infrastructure investor Stonepeak for $5.7 billion. According to Woodside, the divestment enhances the project economics and the company’s cash flow profile ahead of revenues from Woodside’s Scarborough Energy Project in Australia, strengthening the capacity for shareholder returns.

Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill welcomed Stonepeak to the Louisiana LNG Project last week and said: “We are very pleased to have Stonepeak join us in Louisiana LNG, given their demonstrated track record investing in US gas and LNG infrastructure across LNG facilities, LNG carriers, and floating storage and regasification units."

Woodside had also said it was in talks with other potential partners to further sell down its holding in Louisiana LNG. Last year, the company announced the acquisition of US LNG developer Tellurian for $1.2 billion to develop the 27.6 million metric tons a year Louisiana LNG project in four phases.

With significant international LNG and energy leadership experience, Bairstow has successfully marketed and delivered LNG projects from concept through to operations and executed over $140 billion of gas and LNG transactions.

She joined Mexico Pacific in January 2019 as a formative executive team member, and was promoted to Chief Executive Officer in 2024, a role in which she was responsible for the execution and delivery of the 14.1 mtpa Mexico Pacific LNG export project located at Puerto Libertad along with future company growth projects.