BHP will pay a record dividend after the second-biggest profit in the company’s history enabled it to return $US16.3 billion of dividends to shareholders for the year to June.
The $US21.3 billion underlying profit from continuing operations and the $US3.25 per share of total dividends for the year were both better than analysts had expected.BHP argued that shareholder returns for the year were actually closer to $US36 billion including the Woodside shares granted to BHP shareholders in exchange for the sale of BHP’s petroleum division.
Analysts had expected BHP to report a $US20.88 billion underlying profit excluding the petroleum division that was sold to Woodside during the year.While Tuesday’s result fell short of that 2011 record on face value, there’s a strong case to suggest it was actually a better result based on the changes to BHP’s asset portfolio over that time.
The 2011 record profit was achieved with the help of the petroleum assets that now reside within Woodside and the cluster of minerals assets that now reside within South32.Tuesday’s profit was also bigger than the 2011 record if measured in Australian dollar terms; the local currency was close to, or above parity with the US dollar for significant periods in 2011.The price for benchmark ore with 62 per cent iron was $US104.40 per tonne on August 15 according to price provider Platts.
Top quality hard coking coal from Queensland fetched $US244.50 per tonne on the same day according to Platts.