Norwegian oil firm Equinor will cut its quarterly dividend payment by two-thirds as part of an effort to preserve cash amid the collapse in crude prices, it said on Thursday.
The first-quarter cash payout to shareholders will be $0.09 per share, down from $0.27 in the final quarter of last year, it added.
"Equinor has already taken forceful actions to strengthen our liquidity and financial resilience under the current circumstances," Chief Executive Eldar Saetre said in a statement.
"In this extraordinary market situation, we have now also decided to reduce the cash dividend for the first quarter 2020 by 67%, compared to the proposed fourth quarter 2019 dividend," he added.
The company recently announced plans to cut investments, exploration drilling and operating costs by around $3 billion to help weather the crisis.
The company last month also suspended its $5 billion 2019-2022 share buyback plan and on April 1 raised $5 billion in a bond issue.
"The purpose of the combined efforts, including a reduction in dividend, is to secure balance sheet capacity, strengthen liquidity and support continued investments in a high-quality project portfolio," Equinor said.
"This provides for long term competitive growth and shareholder value," it added.
The price of North Sea Brent crude on Wednesday touched a 21-year low of $15.98 per barrel, down 75% since the start of the year as demand for oil collapsed due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
On Thursday, Brent had recovered somewhat to trade at $23.06, bolstered by tentative talk of additional supply cuts from OPEC producers and U.S. inventory builds that were less dire than some expected.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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