Oil giant BP halved its shareholder payout from 10.5 cents to 5.25 cents per share for the second quarter after reporting a record loss of $16.8bn. The loss is huge and uncomparable with a profit of $1.8bn for the same period last year. This is the first dividend cut for BP since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
The cut of BP’s dividend is not a surprise and comes just months after Royal Dutch Shell slashed its dividend for the first time since the second world war.
The company wants to shift towards clean energy and has set out a strategy, to use the next decade to shift towards clean energy in line with its plan to become a “net-zero carbon” company by 2050.
Surprisingly, the BP stock price is trading above 300p, up almost 7% for the day, at the moment of writing.
