Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 11, 2026
National Fuel Gas Co (NFG)
A forensic read on National Fuel Gas Co built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
2.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
11.3
P / E (ttm)
16.8%
ROE
$7.7B
Market cap
2.75%
Dividend yield
17.1%
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). 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.
National Fuel Gas Co earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.4, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+74.1%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +74.1% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. This is the third straight fiscal year of building accruals — a multi-year streak is a materially stronger tell than a single year's move. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 14% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
7.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 7.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 10% — around its ~8% cost of capital, so growth is roughly value-neutral.
-0.3%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed -1% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (-0.3%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($54M) are about offsetting stock comp ($20M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
130% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $243M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 130% of free cash flow, but 22% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow, with the gap funded by debt or cash reserves rather than the cash the business itself throws off; the payout itself is still covered by operating cash. Counting the $20M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 140%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.28B
Revenue Growth YoY+17.1%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+1.4%
Net Margin22.8%
Free Cash Flow$187.2M
Return on Equity16.8%
Debt / Equity0.87x
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 National Fuel Gas Co's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?