Earnings Preview for Murphy Oil (MUR)

Murphy Oil MUR will be reporting first-quarter 2011 results Wednesday afternoon. Analysts are looking for the oil refiner to announce that per-share earnings rose 23.0% from a year ago to $1.00. The consensus estimate has risen in the past 60 days from $0.85. Analysts also expect to see revenues of $7.6 billion for the quarter, which represents a 46.2% jump from the same period of last year. Arkansas-based Murphy Oil engages in the exploration and production of oil and gas in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the world. The company also refines and markets crude oil in the United States and United Kingdom, and it operates some 1,000 gasoline stations, many of them found in the parking lots Walmart WMT stores. So far, analysts anticipate sequential and year-over-year growth of per-share earnings in the second quarter. Note though that analysts have overestimated Murphy's earnings in three of the past five quarters; EPS missed the consensus estimate by 11 cents in the fourth quarter. Murphy has a dividend yield of 1.4% and a price/earnings-to-growth ratio of 0.9%. Shares are trading at 18.5 times earnings estimates, but the forward price-to-earnings ratio estimate is only 11.7. Shares are also trading near the 52-week high of $78.16. In the past three months, Murphy has outperformed larger competitors BP BP and Exxon Mobil XOM, as well as the broader market.