Woodside Petroleum chief executive Peter Coleman is turning a keener eye to potential acquisitions after a decision by the Browse joint venture to ditch a $40 billion-plus floating LNG project freed up the company to chase "attractive" assets.

The indefinite deferral of the Browse project off the north-west coast was forced by the collapse in oil prices, which created an "extremely challenging external environment" for the huge project despite work done to reduce costs, Woodside said.

Plans for Woodside's huge Browse floating LNG project have been delayed again.

Mr Coleman said the decision to delay the venture gave Woodside headroom to pursue acquisitions of assets that were starting to come onto the depressed market, and signalled they would take priority over returning capital to shareholders.

A share buy back "is attractive in some respects but it's also maybe . . . preventing you from pursuing opportunities that only come up once every 10 years or so in the cycle," he said.