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MUR, Murphy Oil

Oil & Gas Producers capital-intensive Distress / turnaroundCyclical

Murphy Oil Corporation is a global oil and natural gas exploration and production company, with both onshore and offshore operations and properties.

In 2013, the United States (U.S.) refining and marketing business was separated from Murphy Oil Corporation's oil and natural gas E&P business.

For reporting purposes, Murphy's E&P activities are subdivided into three geographic segments, including the U.S., Canada and all other countries.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

MUR · Murphy Oil

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$2.7B

−10.9% YoY · 9% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $2.7B 5-yr avg $3.2B

Operating margin 10.8% 5-yr avg 21.8%

ROIC 2% 5-yr avg 11%

Owner-earnings margin 44% 5-yr avg 50%

Free cash flow margin 44% 5-yr avg 50%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Net crude oil and condensate revenue (83%), Natural Gas (14%) and Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) (3%).
Situation: Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 100% and operating margin about 11% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −78% and 38% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Read this kind of business on the commodity price, and the cost to lift a barrel. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 3%, above 15% in 1 of 9 years). By owner earnings: roughly 46% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Net crude oil and condensate revenue is 83% of revenue, with Natural Gas the other meaningful line at 14%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Net crude oil and condensate revenue83%$2.2B
Natural Gas14%$382M
Natural Gas Liquids (NGL)3%$80M
Oil and Gas, Purchased0%$0

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$1.9B	$1.3B	$1.8B	$2.8B	$1.8B	$2.8B	$4.2B	$3.4B	$3.0B	$2.7B	$2.7B	RevenueRevenue
—	—	—	—	100%	100%	96%	99%	100%	100%	100%	Gross marginGross mgn
13%	16%	11%	8%	8%	4%	3%	3%	4%	5%	5%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($389M)	($26M)	$216M	$445M	($1.4B)	$281M	$1.6B	$1.0B	$603M	$301M	$296M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−20.9%	−2.0%	11.9%	15.8%	−77.8%	10.0%	37.6%	30.2%	20.0%	11.2%	10.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($276M)	($312M)	$411M	$1.1B	($1.1B)	($74M)	$965M	$662M	$407M	$104M	$84M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	1%	—	—	24%	23%	16%	30%	42%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$601M	$613M	$749M	$1.5B	$803M	$1.4B	$2.2B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.2B	$1.3B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.1B	$752M	$776M	$1.1B	$987M	$795M	$777M	$862M	$866M	$978M	$1.0B	DepreciationDeprec.
($177M)	$173M	($437M)	($808M)	$964M	$701M	$438M	$226M	$456M	$166M	$146M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$927M	$910M	$1.0B	$1.3B	$0	$20M	$129M	$36M	$8M	$29M	$50M	CapexCapex
49.8%	70.0%	56.0%	47.7%	0.0%	0.7%	3.0%	1.0%	0.3%	1.1%	1.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($326M)	($297M)	($26M)	$145M	$803M	$1.4B	$2.1B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−17.5%	−22.8%	−1.5%	5.1%	45.8%	50.0%	48.6%	49.7%	57.0%	45.3%	44.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($326M)	($297M)	($262M)	$145M	$803M	$1.4B	$2.1B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Free cash flowFCF
−17.5%	−22.8%	−14.5%	5.1%	45.8%	50.0%	48.6%	49.7%	57.0%	45.3%	44.3%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$207M	$173M	$173M	$164M	$96M	$77M	$128M	$171M	$180M	$186M	$189M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	$0	$0	$500M	$0	$0	$0	$150M	$301M	$103M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-4%	-0%	3%	6%	-16%	—	19%	13%	8%	3%	2%	ROICROIC
-6%	-7%	9%	21%	-27%	-2%	19%	12%	8%	2%	2%	Return on equityROE
−10%	−10%	5%	18%	−30%	−4%	17%	9%	4%	−2%	−2%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$873M	$965M	$360M	$307M	$311M	$521M	$492M	$317M	$424M	$377M	$379M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$357M	$243M	$232M	$427M	$262M	$258M	$391M	$344M	$273M	$347M	$467M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$127M	$105M	$80M	$76M	$66M	$54M	$55M	$54M	$55M	$57M	$58M	InventoryInvent.
$785M	$596M	$348M	$602M	$407M	$623M	$544M	$447M	$472M	$572M	$646M	Accounts payablePayables
($301M)	($247M)	($36M)	($99M)	($79M)	($311M)	($98M)	($48M)	($145M)	($168M)	($120M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.6B	$1.4B	$880M	$974M	$1.0B	$881M	$972M	$752M	$785M	$817M	$937M	Current assetsCur. assets
$1.5B	$834M	$846M	$943M	$716M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$847M	$943M	$1.1B	$1.1B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×	1.6×	1.0×	1.0×	1.4×	0.8×	0.8×	0.9×	0.8×	0.8×	0.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$10.3B	$9.9B	$11.1B	$11.7B	$10.6B	$10.3B	$10.3B	$9.8B	$9.7B	$9.8B	$10.0B	Total assetsAssets
$3.0B	$2.9B	$3.1B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$2.5B	$1.8B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$2.6B	Total debtDebt
$2.1B	$2.0B	$2.8B	$2.5B	$2.7B	$1.9B	$1.3B	$1.0B	$852M	$1.0B	$2.2B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-2.6×	-0.1×	1.2×	2.0×	-8.0×	1.3×	10.5×	9.3×	5.7×	3.1×	2.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$4.9B	$4.6B	$4.8B	$5.5B	$4.2B	$4.2B	$5.0B	$5.4B	$5.2B	$5.1B	$5.1B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
172M	173M	174M	165M	154M	154M	157M	157M	151M	144M	144M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$10.82	$7.54	$10.37	$17.09	$11.41	$18.16	$26.80	$22.02	$19.99	$18.68	$19.04	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.60	$-1.81	$2.36	$6.98	$-7.48	$-0.48	$6.13	$4.22	$2.70	$0.72	$0.58	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-1.89	$-1.72	$-0.15	$0.88	$5.23	$9.09	$13.03	$10.94	$11.39	$8.46	$8.44	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-1.89	$-1.72	$-1.50	$0.88	$5.23	$9.09	$13.03	$10.94	$11.39	$8.46	$8.44	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.20	$1.00	$0.99	$0.99	$0.63	$0.50	$0.81	$1.09	$1.19	$1.29	$1.31	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$5.38	$5.27	$5.81	$8.16	$0.00	$0.13	$0.82	$0.23	$0.05	$0.20	$0.35	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$28.56	$26.78	$27.72	$33.17	$27.45	$26.94	$31.72	$34.24	$34.39	$35.54	$35.32	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+6.3%/yr	+10.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	—	+10.1%/yr
Dividends / share	+0.8%/yr	+15.6%/yr
Capital spending / share	−30.6%/yr	—
Book value / share	+2.5%/yr	+5.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

144Mpeak FY2018

ROIC

3%low FY2020

Gross margin

100%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

0.8×peak FY2019

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$1.2Bowner earningsvs.$104Mnet incomelow FY2016

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $104M of profit into $1.2B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$104M

Owner earnings$1.2B · 45% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$104M	$407M	$662M	$965M	($74M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$978M	+$866M	+$862M	+$777M	+$795M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$166M	+$456M	+$226M	+$438M	+$701M
Cash from operations	$1.2B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$2.2B	$1.4B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$29M	−$8M	−$36M	−$129M	−$20M
Owner earnings	$1.2B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$1.4B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	45%	57%	50%	49%	50%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position .

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 3.1×

Adequate

Operating income $301M ÷ interest expense $96M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.2B · 7.4× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $377M − debt $2.6B

What this means
Netting $377M of cash and short-term investments against $2.6B of debt leaves $2.2B owed, about 7.4× a year's operating profit (8.6× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 3%

Below average through the cycle

9-yr median, range -16%–19%; 3% latest = NOPAT $211M ÷ invested capital $7.3B

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran 3% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 45%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -23%–57%; latest $1.2B = operating cash $1.2B − maintenance capex $29M

Industry peers: median 24%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 45% of revenue this year, a 45% median across 10 years.
Are earnings backed by cash? 11.97×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.2B ÷ net income $104M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 24%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $289M ÷ Owner Earnings $1.2B

What this means
Of $1.2B Owner Earnings, $289M (24%) went back to shareholders, $186M dividends, $103M buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.03×

Harvesting

Capex $29M ÷ depreciation $978M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.7B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.77×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $2.6B vs ($246M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 4 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $2.73/share (latest year $0.73), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $35.71/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 6 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −4% → 20% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The margin widened even though the filing names price competition — the gain came from volume or cost, not pricing power. Read where.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −4% early to 20% lately, median 11% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2020 · −77.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −2.0%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 10 of the years on record.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$937M

Cash & short-term investments$379M
Receivables$467M
Inventory$58M
Other current assets$33M

Current liabilities$1.1B

Debt due within a year$40M
Accounts payable$646M
Other current liabilities$449M

Current ratio0.83×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.77×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.33×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($197M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$40M due · $379M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+10.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.8× → 0.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$5.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($3.9B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$2.1B$749M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $3.4B (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$319M

'27$149M

'28$66M

'29$63M

'30$60M

later$367M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$319Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.0Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$829Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$2.6B

Lease obligations (present value)$829M

Total fixed claims on the business$3.4B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.4B, of which the leases are 24%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $12.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$4.4B · 35%
Dividends$1.6B · 12%
Buybacks$1.1B · 8%
Retained (debt / cash)$5.6B · 44%

Returned to owners$2.6B
31% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.6B as dividends and $1.1B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$29.50
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 36M shares were bought for $1.1B, about $29.50 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $24.15 (2019) to $43.98 (2023); its heaviest year, 2019, paid $24.15 ($500M).
Net change in share count−16.1%
The diluted count fell from 172M to 144M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$1.29/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 1% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Eric M. Hambly	$11.4M	$26.1M	$1.4B
2022	Eric M. Hambly	$13.4M	$39.8M	$2.1B
2023	Eric M. Hambly	$13.3M	$11.8M	$1.7B
2024	Eric M. Hambly	$10.4M	$2.3M	$1.7B
2025	Eric M. Hambly	$7.7M	$9.9M	$1.2B

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership5.8%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio38:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Murphy Oil is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 10 years, $1.6B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Oil & Gas Producers

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
CIVICivitas Resources	$5.2B	—	29.6%	9%	60%
CRGYCrescent Energy	$3.6B	—	13.6%	2%	23%
SMSM Energy	$3.2B	62%	19.8%	8%	47%
RRCRange Resources	$3.0B	91%	5.4%	-3%	26%
CRCCalifornia Resources	$2.9B	24%	19.7%	13%	12%
MURMurphy Oil	$2.7B	100%	11.6%	3%	46%
CNXCNX Resources	$2.2B	—	-3.2%	-0%	24%
DECDiversified Energy Company	$1.8B	—	29.2%	14%	15%
Group median	—	76%	16.7%	6%	25%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Murphy Oil has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Murphy Oil earns about $1.2B on its 45.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 45.3% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($1.2B) Net of stock comp Steady-state · maintenance capex ($1.2B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−4%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · since FY2019+43%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $1.2B on 143M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $2.2B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($50M) runs well above depreciation ($1.0B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.2B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh MUR against another business →

The owners of MUR: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Murphy Oil (MUR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MUR, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← MU its page in the Manual MUSA →

Industry order: ← MTDR the Oil & Gas Producers chapter NOG →