The Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL) share price fell close to 3% today.
It has been a volatile day for the ASX share market. The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) dropped by around 3%.
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What's going on in Ukraine?
Russia has finally launched a full invasion of Ukraine. International media is reporting that Ukraine is being invaded from multiple locations by Russia, as well as intense shelling and missile strikes.
On Twitter, the Ukraine foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on the world to take a number of actions to deal with Russia and help Ukraine.
He called for:
Devastating sanctions on Russia NOW, including SWIFT
Fully isolate Russia by all means, in all formats
Weapons, equipment for Ukraine
Financial assistance
Humanitarian assistance
The invasion of Ukraine and possible response by the global community is seen as a key reason why the oil price has risen above US$100 per barrel.
Russia is one of the main oil producers in the world. According to reporting by Forbes, Russia produced 10.1 million barrels of oil per day of crude oil and natural gas condensate in 2020. That put it in second place behind the US at 11.3 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia was third at 9.3 million barrels of oil per day.
Sanctions on Russian oil could hurt the available oil supply, when prices are already rising.
Woodside is one of Australia's biggest oil producers. So why was the Woodside share price sold down?
There are some days when nearly every ASX share drops, with indiscriminate selling. The worst of the COVID sell-off in 2020 saw some days like that. But there might be another culprit.
Ex-dividend date
An ex-dividend date is the date that new investors are no longer entitled to a dividend that has been declared. Prior to that date, new investors would be entitled to the dividend. All things being equal, it is not uncommon for a share price to fall by a similar amount to the dividend declared dividend after going ex-dividend.
Woodside's ex-dividend date was today. It had declared a final dividend of US$1.05 per share, bringing the full-year dividend to US$1.35 per share. That dividend was based on underlying NPAT of US$1.62 billion.
If it hadn't been Woodside's ex-dividend date, it may have been possible that the Woodside share price could have risen today.
