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* BHP to return $5.2 bln in off-market buyback
* After buyback BHP to return $5.2 bln in special dividend
* Shares jump as much as 6.2 pct(Adds investor comment, share price reaction)
Nov 1 (Reuters) - Top global miner BHP onThursday said it would buy back shares and pay a specialdividend to return $10.4 billion to shareholders, sticking to apromise to hand back all of the proceeds from the sale of itsU.S. shale business.
Investors cheered the massive return and the split between a$5.2 billion off-market buyback and a $5.2 billion specialdividend, sending BHP's Australian shares up as much as 6.2percent.
BHP had promised to return all of the net proceeds from the$10.5 billion sale of its U.S. shale business to shareholderswhen the deal was announced in July. British oil major BP Plcbought most of the business in a deal completed thisweek.
"It's good that 100 percent is going back to shareholders,"said Stephen Butel, an analyst with Platypus Asset Management,which owns shares in BHP.
Miners have been handing money back to investors following arecovery from the commodity bust of 2015-16, under pressure frominvestors not to waste growing piles of cash on buying up assetsthat may never deliver returns.
"Giving $10 billion back shows you they probably don't seeopportunities to deploy a huge amount of capital internally atthe moment," Butel said.
"The whole industry's probably learned from the previousboom and would be quite hesitant to go out and do a largeacquisition."
Bidding into the off-market buyback will open on Nov. 19 andclose on Dec 14. BHP said it reserves the right to buy back itsAustralian BHP Billiton Limited shares at up to a 14 percentdiscount.
It will decide the per share amount for its special dividendin December once the off-market buyback is completed, based onthe reduced amount of shares on issue.
"Returning this $10.4 billion will bring the total cashreturned to shareholders to $21 billion over the last twoyears," BHP Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mackenzie said.
BHP's big return to investors comes as world no.2 miner RioTinto is returning to shareholders $3.2 billionreaped from the sale of its Australian coal assets on top of a$4 billion share buyback.
(Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing byHugh Lawson and Stephen Coates)
