BHP Billiton Limited (ASX: BHP) reported its result for the half year to 31 December 2017.
BHP Billiton is Australia’s largest resource company and one of the largest in the world.
Here are some of the highlights compared to last year, all of the numbers are in US dollars:
- Underlying day to day trading, or EBITDA, up 14% to $11.2 billion (What the heck is EBITDA?)
- Underlying attributable profit up 25% to $4.1 billion
- Underlying earnings per share up 25% to 76.1 US cents
- Attributable profit down 37% to $2 billion
- Dividend per share up 38% to 55 US cents
There are four segments to BHP Billiton’s business, they are iron ore, petroleum, coal and copper. Iron ore makes up 38% of EBITDA, petroleum makes up 18% of EBITDA, coal makes up 16% of EBITDA and copper makes up 28% of EBITDA.
The iron ore EBITDA decreased by 3%, the petroleum EBITDA grew by 2%, the coal EBITDA decreased by 11% and the copper EBITDA rose by 83%.
In FY18 BHP Billiton is looking to maximise cash flow with 6% copper equivalent volume growth and it expects free cash flow in this financial year to be more than US$12 billion at spot prices.
Management say they will maintain capital discipline and expect net debt will be in the target range of US$10 billion to US$15 billion. Capital expenditure guidance is unchanged at US$6.9 billion.
The return on capital employed was up to 12.8% and BHP Billiton will be paying out US$2.9 billion in dividends, which was US$0.9 billion over the minimum 50% payout.
BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie said “Higher commodity prices and a solid operating performance delivered free cash flow of US$4.9 billion. We used this cash to further reduce net debt and increase returns to shareholders through higher dividends.”
We remain firm in our resolve to maximise cash flow, maintain discipline and increase shareholder value and returns. – Mackenzie
The BHP share price is down 4.24% on the London Stock Exchange so far, according to Google Finance.
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