ASX closes flat; Woodside, Santos lead energy rally on oil price boom as banks slide
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The news: The Australian sharemarket finished higher after fossil fuels companies Woodside and Santos helped drive an energy sector rally on higher oil prices after the US announced sanctions on Russia’s biggest producers. Australia’s biggest banks finished lower.
The benchmark ASX 200 rose 0.03% to end at 9,032.8 with seven out of the 11 sectors finishing in the green.
The price of WTI Crude Oil and Brent Crude lifted 3.9% and 3.7% respectively by 4:26pm AEDT. Woodside (+4.3%) and Santos (+2.2%) finished higher. Oil refiner Ampol (+4.1%) also finished higher as Karoon Energy (+9.8%) reported a lift in quarterly revenue despite seeing lower production during the period.
Woodside also announced it had agreed to sell a 10% stake in its Louisiana LNG project, as well as an 80% interest and operatorship of its Driftwood Pipeline, to US energy company Williams for a total payment of $378 million.
The finance sector (-0.8%) was the second worst performing as Commonwealth Bank (-1.4%), Westpac (-0.9%), NAB (-0.7%), ANZ Group (-0.4%) and Macquarie Group (-1.3%) fell.
The tech sector (-0.9%) was the worst performing as Wisetech Global (-1.5%), Xero (-2.5%) and Technology One (-1.5%) finished lower.
Biggest movers:
- Critical minerals miners – Pilbara Minerals (+5.3%), Liontown Resources (+4.2%), Lynas Rare Earths (+4%) and IGO (+3.5%) finished higher.
- Perpetual (-4.3%) – Chair Greg Cooper has rebuked media reports that Oaktree Capital Management is considering walking away from negotiations to buy its wealth business.
- Super Retail (-4%) – Delivered 4.5% total year-on-year sales growth in the first 16 weeks of FY26, with the biggest growth gains posted by Macpac and Supercheap Auto, but warned the outlook for consumer spending remains uncertain.
Other news:
- Fortescue (+2.4%) – Reiterated its full-year guidance after reporting record first-quarter iron ore shipments.
- Regis Healthcare (+2%) – Agreed to buy two residential aged care homes in Victoria for $45 million.
- IAG (+1.4%) – Upgraded its FY26 guidance after completing the $855m acquisition of the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland's (RACQ) insurance business.
- South32 (+0.6%) – Chair Karen Wood will retire in February 2026. She will be replaced by independent non-executive director Stephen Pearce as her successor.
- BHP (-1.2%) – Chief executive Mike Henry told shareholders that Australia needs to move faster to secure global investment in the local mining industry at its annual general meeting.
What’s ahead:
- S&P Global will release flash data for Australia’s manufacturing and services purchasing manager’s index for September tomorrow at 9:00am AEDT.
- RBA Governor Michele Bullock will deliver the Bradfield Oration tomorrow at 11:05am AEDT.
