The Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX: WHC) share price has become something of a dark horse on the ASX 200 boards over the past year. Whitehaven was long a bit of an ASX laggard. Between mid-2018 and mid-2020, Whitehaven shares fell by around 80%. Ouch.
But the story has been a very different one lately. Back in September 2020, this coal miner was an 85 cent share. Fast forward to today, and Whitehaven shares are asking $5.40 each. That's a rise of over 500% in what has been less than two years. Whitehaven shares are also up more than 95% in 2022 alone, as well as by more than 200% over just the past 12 months.
Rising coal and energy prices have largely been responsible for this dramatic turnaround in fortunes for what is one of the ASX's largest pure-play coal shares. But now that Whitehaven has catapulted itself back into relevance for the average ASX investor, many might be wondering what the Whitehaven story is when it comes to dividends. Does Whitehaven even pay shareholders to own its shares?
Is Whitehaven Coal an ASX 200 dividend share?
Well, the answer is yes. Whitehaven is an ASX dividend share. However, it has proven to be a patchy one. The company did fund dividend payments every six months over 2018 and 2019. However, it failed to pay a final dividend in 2020 (likely due to the pandemic), and didn't pay any dividends at all last year.
Saying that, Whitehaven has turned the taps back on in 2022. Only last month, the coal miner paid out an unfranked interim dividend of 8 cents per share. That was far higher than the 1.5 cents per share interim dividend of 2020, but not even close to the 2019 final dividend of 13 cents per share.
So investors can reasonably expect some income from their Whitehaven shares. but it is certainly nothing close to what the likes of other ASX resources shares like BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) have been paying out in recent years.
At the current Whitehaven share price, this ASX 200 coal miner has a trailing dividend yield of 1.5%.
