COP Out -- COP To Sell Indonesia Assets; Will Raise Stake In Australia Pacific LNG -- Source; COP's Dividend News -- December 8, 2021

Link here. 

Now, back to that COP dividend story.

Backstory: COP recently made headlines that it would return more cash to its investors, or something to that effect. 

So, I was surprised when I saw this over at Marketbeat.com:

The Marketbeat.com robot has a nasty habit of doing this; I've been "tricked" more than once. 

Here's the story.

COP generally pays a quarterly dividend early in the following months, from nasdaq.com:

• March, June, Sept, December;
• the declaration date is earlier, the record date is earlier, but the pay date is usually near the first business day in those months;
• in calendar year 2020 COP paid 42 cents/share on their usual dates and increased it to 43 cents at the end of the year
• in calendar year 2021 COP paid 43 cents/share on their usual dates and increased the dividend to 46 cents in the last quarter, pay date December 1, 2021, and that dividend was paid on time

Now the "fishy" part.

On December 6, 2021, completely off-schedule, COP declares a "special" / "variable" dividend of 20 cents/share with a record date of January 3, 2021; and a pay date of January 14, 2020. 

The marketbeat.com robot saw that 20 cents and noted it was a decrease from the previously declared / paid 46 cents. 

So, it turns out that within days of COP announcing that it will increase shareholder return, COP does just that by declaring a "special" / "variable" dividend which was almost half of its regular dividend. 

It was reported that COP may have as many as eight dividends yearly for the next year or so. One would assume the regular dividend would be paid in the usual months, and in addition a smaller dividend would be paid in four "off" months.  

So much more could be said, but I will leave it at that.