Woodside Energy Group Ltd (ASX: WDS) shares delivered some hefty passive income in the year gone by.
And that came atop a 21% share price gain over those 12 months, with Woodside closing Friday trading for $38.22 a share.
What kind of dividends has Woodside been paying?
On the back of soaring profits, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) oil and gas stock pleased passive income investors by paying an all-time high interim dividend and an all-time high final dividend. Both fully franked.
Woodside paid an interim dividend of $1.60 per share on 6 October. The final dividend of $2.15 per share landed in eligible shareholder bank accounts on 5 April.
That works out to a record full-year payout of $3.75 per Woodside share.
At Friday's closing price, that equates to a trailing yield of 9.8%, with potential tax benefits from those franking credits.
So, how much passive income might I earn by buying $5,000 of Woodside shares today?
Let's run the numbers.
On the hunt for passive income from Woodside shares?
Before we do the maths, an important note.
The yields you generally see quoted, and the ones we're discussing here, are trailing yields. Backwards looking by definition.
The amount of passive income Woodside shares deliver in future years may be higher or lower, depending on a range of company-specific and macroeconomic factors.
The past year's record dividends were driven by exceptionally high oil prices, with Brent crude oil topping US$120 a barrel in June 2022. Brent dropped all the way back to US$72 per barrel in late June this year.
However, with falling inventories and sustained production cuts from OPEC+, Brent crude is back above US$86 per barrel today. And with Russia's war in Ukraine escalating in recent weeks, US$100 per barrel could well be within reach again.
With that said, if I bought $5,000 worth of Woodside shares today (assuming the market was open on a Sunday!), I could expect $490 a year in passive income at the current 9.8% trailing yield.
Very tidy.
We'll find out what Woodside's actual interim dividend is on Tuesday, 22 August. That's when the ASX 200 energy stock reports on its half-year results.
