CONOCOPHILLIPS (COP) — payout ratio, two ways
Fiscal year ending 2025-12-31 · sector Energy · computed from SEC filings, not taken from a data vendor.
Free cash flow is not shown for this company. It cannot be computed from what this company files — the inputs are absent from its XBRL, not zero. The figure marked in the table is operating cash flow instead.
| Basis | Payout | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | 50.1% | Swings with the commodity, not with the business. A payout ratio for a producer says as much about the oil price in that fiscal year as about the dividend. |
| Operating cash flow | 20.2% | Before capital spending, so it understates the payout that free cash flow shows. |
No free cash flow figure is shown. This company does not report the inputs for it in its XBRL filings — capital expenditure, in particular, is often folded into a single investing total rather than tagged on its own. The figure is absent from the filings, not zero, and inventing one from a balance-sheet movement would be a guess dressed as a measurement.
Spread between highest and lowest: 30 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $3.18 ÷ diluted EPS $6.35
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $3,995.0m ÷ operating cash flow $19,796.0m
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-17 · accession
0001163165-26-000009
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take my word for any of it.
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell me — that is more useful to me than agreement.