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The steep collapse in the price of oil over the past year has caused stock prices to decline across the sector. In turn, this has pushed dividend yields up in the energy space, since stock prices and yields are inversely related. As a result, income investors can easily find significant dividend yields among Big Oil stocks.
BP PLC (NYSE: BP) is the best Big Oil dividend stock, for a few key reasons. First, BP offers the highest dividend yield among the integrated majors. In addition, BP has grown its dividend over the past several years. Lastly, it generates enough cash flow to support its extremely high dividend, thanks to its balanced and diversified business model.
Industry-Leading Dividend
As an integrated major, BP operates an upstream exploration and production business, as well as a downstream refining business. Its peer group includes other integrated majors like Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX).
What separates BP from its competitors is that it offers a nearly 6% dividend yield. This towers above the yield many of its peers sport right now. For example, Chevron yields about 4%, while Exxon Mobil is at 3.3%. The difference in yield is very significant, and gives BP a big advantage for income investors.
Normally, a sky-high dividend that is significantly above its sector average would raise eyebrows. This is especially true for an energy company, since many energy firms have slashed their dividends in recent weeks due to the collapse in energy prices.
But as an integrated major, BP has a balanced business model that can generate cash flow even when oil prices decline. That’s because downstream operations tend to actually improve when oil prices are volatile. When oil prices decline rapidly, refining margins widen. This causes profitability to expand and helps balance out the company’s profits, since upstream operations are significantly hurt by falling oil.
For instance, BP’s downstream segment produced $1.2 billion in profit before interest and taxes last quarter, up significantly from just $70 million in profit in the same quarter in 2013. This helped offset a 41% decline in upstream profits in the same period. Overall, BP generated $32.8 billion in operating cash flow last year.
These healthy metrics should keep BP’s hefty dividend intact. It currently distributes $2.40 per share. Even though the steep drop in oil prices took a bite out of its net profits, the company still earned more than enough profits to cover its payout. BP earned $2.63 per share last year. Going forward, it should continue to support its dividend with solid profits.
The company got some good news on two key fronts recently. The first one pertains to the ongoing civil trial stemming from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that only 3.19 million barrels had spilled into the Gulf. This was significantly lower than the government’s calculation, and effectively reduced the maximum financial penalty that BP could face from $18 billion to $13.7 billion.
Secondly, BP’s operations in Russia are faring better than analysts had expected. Due to the troublesome geopolitical conflict in Eastern Europe, its exposure to Russian oil production was seen as a major challenge. It made a major commitment to Russia by taking a 19% stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft.
Heading into last quarter’s earnings, analyst expectations called for as much as a $750 million loss from the Rosneft stake. Surprisingly, BP turned a $470 million profit from its equity investment in Rosneft. This helped boost its earnings results.
BP: Best-of-Breed Big Oil Dividend
There are many Big Oil dividend stocks sporting high yields, due to the sector-wide decline over the past year. This has created many bargains. Chief among them is BP, because it has the highest dividend yield of the integrated majors.
BP’s 6% dividend yield is well supported with underlying cash flow and profits. It performed surprisingly well last year, thanks to its integrated model and better-than-expected results from its Rosneft stake. BP will keep pumping out hefty dividends for the foreseeable future.
Cheap Oil Here to Stay – For Now
Crude hasn’t been this cheap since March 11, 2009. And it’s likely to stay low for a while. OPEC refuses to cut production. And US production is expected to increase – not decrease – an additional 600,000 more barrels a day. The Saudis have played this one wrong – and you could profit from their blunder.
Top analyst Tyler Laundon’s found what he considers the best way to play this new, cheap oil boom.