Jadestone Energy To Keep Looking For Deals As It Starts Dividends

(Alliance News) - Jadestone Energy Inc on Friday unveiled a dividend policy, targeting a dividend yield of between 2.5% and 4%.

Jadestone, which listed in London in the summer of 2018, had promised shareholders that year a dividend policy would be set up. It will declare a maiden payout when reporting results for the six months to June 2020.

From there, it will declare returns at the halfway stage of the year and at the end of the year.

It is targeting a 2020 dividend of between USD7.5 million and USD12.5 million, and the dividend would be split one-third at the interim stage and the rest at the end.

Jadestone has a market capitalisation of approximately GBP250 million. An oil producer of a similar size, Nigeria-focused Eland Oil & Gas, currently has a dividend yield of 2.0% to 2.5%, compared to Jadestone's 2.5% to 4.0% target, though Eland also has a share buyback programme. It declared a dividend policy in February.

Chief Executive Paul Blakeley said: "Jadestone's business strategy, with strong and growing cashflows, lends itself to offering reliable distributions to our shareholders, and we believe it's important, as part of a disciplined capital allocation framework, that we declare our commitment to this principle now.

"This represents another milestone in the strategic reset that started three years ago, and which has transformed Jadestone into a strong cash flow generator, with the ability to grow significantly, while returning value directly to shareholders."

"We delivered approximately USD100 million in cash flow from operations in the first half of 2019, illustrating the cash generative capacity of our current assets. We have significant capital to reinvest in organic growth from both our producing fields, as well as the Nam Du/U Minh gas development in Vietnam, and we're committed to further disciplined, accretive inorganic growth."

Jadestone reported interim results for 2019 at the end of August, without mentioning any dividends, instead saying it was looking an "further inorganic opportunities".

Jadestone, which is listed in Toronto as well as London, focuses on southeast Asia, with assets in Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as Australia.

Shares were flat on Friday morning in London at a price of 54.25 pence each.

By George Collard; georgecollard@alliancenews.com

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