Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Sep 22, 2026
Murphy Oil Corp (MUR)
A forensic read on Murphy Oil Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
3.5
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
18.2
P / E (ttm)
2.0%
ROE
$5.2B
Market cap
2.56%
Dividend yield
-10.2%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Murphy Oil Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.5, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
2.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.7% in the latest fiscal year, against 3% in FY2021, having run between 2.7% and 14.6% across FY2021–FY2025 with no direction held — below the ~8% cost of capital we hold this sector to. If that gap persists through the cycle, incremental reinvestment reduces rather than creates value per share. The capital base behind it barely moved across FY2021–FY2025 ($8.6B to $8.4B, -3%), so there has been little new capital for that return to be earned on.
127% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $289M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 127% of free cash flow, but 23% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow because the business is also funding heavy growth capex (usually debt-financed); the payout itself is covered by operating cash — sustainable as long as that spending is genuine expansion, not upkeep. Counting the $50M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 149%.
-66%
FY2012→FY2013
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~66% in FY2013 (from FY2012) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.72B
Revenue Growth YoY-10.2%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-11.6%
Net Margin3.8%
Free Cash Flow$227.2M
Return on Equity2.0%
Debt / Equity0.27x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Murphy Oil Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?