Although it passes without the fanfare and fireworks that accompany a new calendar year, we've just celebrated the end of the 2022 financial year, and the dawn of a new one. Yes, FY2023 kicked off on Friday. This makes it a good time to pause and reflect on the financial year that was, and how it treated ASX shares. So today, let's check out the Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS) share price.
Woodside has had a big year, perhaps one of the biggest in its history. That's because FY2022 saw Woodside Petroleum (WPL) merge with the petroleum division of BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) and transform into the Woodside Energy Group we see today.
This saw a complex scheme of arrangement that resulted in BHP shareholders issued with new Woodside Energy shares. This came at an arguably fortuitous time for the energy company. 2022 has seen a dramatic escalation of global energy prices. This was largely fuelled by the war in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on Russia — formerly a global powerhouse when it came to energy exports.
According to Business Insider, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil price was around US$75 a barrel at the start of 2022. Today, it remains above US$108 a barrel after rising as high as US$123 in early March.
As an energy share, Woodside shares are arguably influenced by the price of oil itself more than anything else. But let's see how this company really fared over FY2022.
How did the Woodside Energy share price perform over FY2022?
So, Woodside shares started FY2022 on 1 July 2021 at $22.21 each. Last Thursday, Woodside shares closed at $31.84. That means that the Woodside share price gained 43.36% over the 2022 financial year. For some context, FY2022 saw the broader S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) go backwards by a painful 10.19%.
But shareholders also enjoyed some dividend returns over FY2022 as well. Woodside paid out two dividends over the last financial year. The first was the interim dividend of 42.03 cents per share, fully franked, that was paid out on 24 September 2021. The second was the fully franked $1.4616 per share final payment that investors received on 23 March 2022.
Together, these two dividend payments give Woodside shares a trailing yield of 6% on the current Woodside share price. So investors can add those hefty dividend returns to the company's FY2022 performance as well.
So, all in all, it has been a very successful financial year for Woodside shares and investors.
