ConocoPhillips Q1 2026 Earnings: Profit Down on Weaker Prices, Cash Returns Hold Steady
ConocoPhillips earned $1.78 per share in Q1 2026, down from a year ago as lower oil and gas prices and a Middle East-driven output disruption in Qatar weighed on results, even as U.S. onshore production grew and cash generation stayed strong.
| Q1 2026 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $1.78 |
| Revenue | $13.50B |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Net income was $2.2 billion, or $1.78 per share, down from $2.8 billion ($2.23 per share) a year earlier. The company said the decline was mainly driven by lower oil and natural gas prices compared with the same quarter last year.
- Excluding one-time items like costs tied to pending legal claims and a contingent-liability charge, adjusted earnings were $1.89 per share, versus $2.09 a year ago — a smaller decline than the headline number, since it strips out unusual charges.
- Total company production slipped to about 2.31 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, roughly 80,000 barrels below a year ago, as unrest in the Middle East disrupted output tied to Qatar. That masked underlying growth: production in the U.S. Lower 48 states (including the Permian Basin) rose about 4% year over year.
- The company generated $5.4 billion in cash from operations and $2.4 billion in free cash flow (cash left over after funding drilling and other investments) — a sign it’s still converting output into spendable cash even with softer prices.
- ConocoPhillips returned $2.0 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks, in line with its stated goal of returning about 45% of operating cash flow to shareholders this year. It declared a quarterly dividend of $0.84 per share, payable June 1, 2026.
- For the rest of 2026, the company guided to capital spending of $12 to $12.5 billion, including added Permian Basin drilling, and narrowed full-year production guidance to 2.295–2.325 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, reflecting the lost Qatar volumes.
- Management pointed to longer-term progress alongside the quarter’s results: the Willow oil project in Alaska reached the halfway point of construction, new exploration success in Alaska, and a long-term liquefied natural gas supply agreement in Equatorial Guinea.
- Trailing-twelve-month profitability held up reasonably well — net profit margin near 12.6% and operating margin near 19.2% — even though per-share earnings over the past year are down about 25% from the prior year, reflecting the shift from a higher-price to a lower-price environment.
- Shares moved lower in premarket trading following the release, with coverage pointing to the higher planned capital spending and the ongoing Middle East-related disruption to Qatar output as factors investors were weighing.
Q1 2026 in context
| Metric | Mar 2026 | Mar 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $13.5B | $14.5B | -6.8% |
| Net income | $2.2B | $2.8B | -23.4% |
| Diluted EPS | $1.78 | $2.23 | -20.2% |
| Gross margin | 53.5% | 57.3% | -3.8 pts |
| Net margin | 16.2% | 19.7% | -3.5 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Mar 2026 and the quarter ended Mar 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
ConocoPhillips closed at $128.25 on Apr 29, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $123.19 on May 1, 2026, the first session after it — -4.0% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 6, 2025 | $87.70 | $86.83 | -1.0% |
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Sources: company report · earnings call · Investing.com