EOG RESOURCES, INC. (EOG): what the price assumes
In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $143.35, EOG RESOURCES, INC. (EOG) is priced for -3.1% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-26.
Generated: 2026-08-30 · Exported: 2026-08-31 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/EOG
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | EOG |
| Company | EOG RESOURCES, INC. |
| Sector / Industry | Energy |
| Current price | $143.35/sh |
| Composition | Crude Oil and Condensate 55% / Natural Gas Liquids 11% / Natural Gas 12% / Gains on Mark-to-Market Financial Commodity and Other Derivative Contracts, Net 0% / Gathering, Processing and Marketing 22% / Gains (Losses) on Asset Dispositions, Net 0% / Other, Net 0% |
What The Price Assumes (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin (value-band context) | 4.8% |
| Operating margin today | 29.8% |
| Margin compression (value-band) | -25.0pp |
| Implied growth | -3.1% |
| Multiple paid | 11x operating income |
The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 8.8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.
How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.31σ |
| cohort percentile (of 48 peers) | 44 |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 1.24x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.09x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.24x | 3 | expensive |
| Growth | 1.12x | 4 | expensive |
Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.4%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=17)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $349.37 | 0.41x | yes | FCF base $10.7B, growth 3% (input: historical growth), terminal g 3.0%, WACC 8.4%, 5yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $183.15 | 0.78x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 4.0x / 6.9x / 11.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $115.23 | 1.24x | yes | P/E 10x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 7.5x / 10.0x / 12.0x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 6x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | $46.21 | 3.10x | yes | Stage 1: -7% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $111.57 | 1.28x | yes | BV/sh $58.03, ROE (TTM) 17.8%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $152.73 | 0.94x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $98.97 | 1.45x | yes | Rev $23.9B, growth 3% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 2.4x / 3.2x / 3.8x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 6x) |
| Growth-Adjusted P/E | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $131.74 | 1.09x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $8.36B × (1−23%) / WACC 8.4% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $152.20 | 0.94x | yes | BV $58.03 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 17.8% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $115.23 | 1.24x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $10.17 × BVPS $58.03) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $124.16 | 1.15x | yes | EBITDA $11.77B × sector EV/EBITDA 6.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $209.24 | 0.69x | yes | FCF $10721.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $204.69 | 0.70x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $10.50B (FCF $10.72B − SBC $0.22B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $8.52 | 16.83x | yes | EPS $10.17 × (8.5 + 2×-5.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $39.31 | 3.65x | yes | BV $58.03 × (ROIC 5.7% / WACC 8.4%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $53.81 | 2.66x | yes | Revenue $23.88B × sector P/S 1.2x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $109.95 | 1.30x | yes | EPS $10.17 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $4.2b |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 0.76x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 0.59x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -2.3% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- EOG has put its capital return in writing: since fiscal 2024 the company has committed to return a minimum of 70 percent of annual net cash provided by operating activities, net of capital spending, through dividends and buybacks.
- Crude oil and condensate supply 55% of revenue and gathering, processing and marketing another 22%, so the whole enterprise moves with a price EOG does not set: West Texas Intermediate averaged 92.85 dollars a barrel over the quarter ended June 30, 2026.
- Second-quarter results and the call follow on August 5, 2026, and the useful comparison is against the first quarter, when net income reached $1,980 million against $1,463 million a year earlier.
Bull Case
Most companies describe their capital allocation policy in adjectives. EOG wrote its down as a number. Effective from fiscal 2024 the company committed to return a minimum of 70 percent of annual net cash provided by operating activities, measured before certain balance-sheet movements and after all capital spending, and to deliver it through regular dividends, special dividends and share repurchases. That single sentence removes most of the discretion a management team normally enjoys over the shareholder's money, and it changes what a good year at the wellhead actually means for the owner.
The execution is on the record rather than in the plan. Under the repurchase authorization the board established in November 2021 and enlarged in November 2024, EOG has retired 56,166,452 shares at a cost of roughly 6.65 billion dollars, with about 3.35 billion dollars still available to spend. That shows up where it cannot be dressed up: diluted average shares fell from 584 million in 2023 to 569 million in 2024 to 546 million in 2025. The quarterly dividend was set at $1.02 a share for the payment made July 31, 2026. An owner of this company has been getting a steadily larger claim on the same rock.
The rock is the second half of the argument. EOG spent 4.47 billion dollars in cash, plus the assumption of the seller's senior notes, to buy Encino on August 1, 2025, described in the annual report as an independent oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the Utica play. That purchase, together with proved-property additions next to the existing Eagle Ford acreage, brought 749 MMBoe of proved reserves in place during the year. Management's own read on what it now holds is unusually direct for a filing: Management believes that EOG has one of the strongest prospect inventories in EOG's history.
Profitability says the acreage is being worked well rather than merely accumulated. The trailing operating margin runs around 33.6%. Inside the same cohort, APA earned 35.5%, CTRA 29.9%, PR 28.1%, AR 23.1% and SM 11.2%. Only one of those clears EOG, and EOG does it on revenue several times larger. For a business selling an identical commodity to everyone else, the margin difference is the entire competitive statement: it is what the barrel costs to find, drill and move, and nothing else.
The balance sheet lets all of this survive a bad year rather than merely enjoy a good one. Interest is covered better than thirty times over by operating income, and the annual report notes that across the credit facilities there were no borrowings outstanding at any time during 2025 under either facility and the amount outstanding at year-end was zero. A shale producer that can fund its drilling, its dividend and its buyback out of operations, without drawing a revolver, is one that gets to buy assets when the weaker operators have to sell them. That optionality is the part of the bull case that never shows up in a multiple.
Bear Case
Start with the number that sets everything else. For the quarter ended June 30, 2026, West Texas Intermediate crude averaged 92.85 dollars a barrel and Henry Hub natural gas averaged 2.89 dollars per million British thermal units. The trailing operating margin of about 33.6% is a product of that first figure, and so is the roughly ten times operating income the market is paying. Neither number is a statement about EOG. Both are statements about crude oil, priced through a company that has no influence over it whatsoever.
The fragility is easier to see once you notice that reported earnings were already falling before this. Net income was $7,594 million in 2023, $6,403 million in 2024 and $4,980 million in 2025, with diluted earnings per share moving from $13.00 to $11.25 to $9.12 across the same three years. The buyback partly masked the decline at the per-share line, and only partly. The first quarter of 2026 turned back up, to net income of $1,980 million from $1,463 million, but a business whose annual profit can move by a third in either direction without any change in strategy is not a business whose current profit tells you much about its next one.
What makes that more than an academic point is where the cash goes when prices fall. The capital return commitment is a percentage of cash flow, not a fixed dollar amount, so it shrinks exactly when the shareholder would most like it not to. The annual report is explicit that lower commodity prices affect our ability to pay regular and special dividends on our common stock or repurchase shares of our common stock under the share repurchase authorization established by our Board of Directors. The dividend and the buyback are the two most visible reasons to own this stock, and they are both downstream of the price of oil.
The reserve base carries its own obligations. Undeveloped reserves are only allowed on the books against a commitment to spend: PUDs can be recorded in respect of a particular undeveloped undrilled location only if the location is scheduled, under the then-current drilling and development plan, to be drilled within five years from the date that the PUDs were recorded. That is a five-year capital treadmill attached to a large part of the asset value. And the underlying numbers are softer than they look on a page. The filing concedes that the significance of the subjective decisions required and variances in available data for various reservoirs make these estimates generally less precise than other estimates presented.
Then there is the timing question on the biggest recent decision. EOG bought Encino in August 2025 for 4.47 billion dollars in cash plus assumed senior notes, and total long-term debt went from 4.22 billion dollars at the end of 2024 to 7.91 billion at the end of 2025. Buying acreage is how a shale producer replaces what it pumps, so the transaction is not a strategic error. But acquisitions in this industry get done when cash flow is strong, which is also when assets are dearest, and the bill is now fixed while the revenue that services it is not. Hedging softens the edges rather than removing them: the company uses financial derivative instruments (primarily financial basis swap, price swap, option, swaption and collar contracts) and, in certain cases, fixed price physical sales contracts, and collected net cash of 45 million dollars from those settlements in the June quarter, which is a rounding error against the revenue line.
So the bear case here is not that ten times earnings is expensive. It is that ten times a peak-cycle earnings number is a different and more dangerous thing than the same multiple on a stable business, and that everything attractive about this company, the margin, the returns of capital, the ability to buy distressed acreage, is measured in a currency the company does not mint.
Valuation
The price is not asking EOG to grow. Run today's $146.39 backwards and it embeds company-wide operating income shrinking at roughly 4.5% a year across a five-year stage, which is what a market expecting softer commodity prices looks like when you translate it into arithmetic. At roughly ten times operating income the multiple sits in the lower half of the peer range. That reading is sensitive to the discount assumption sitting behind it. Move the required return by a single percentage point and the implied figure shifts by roughly five points either way. The direction of the assumption is the reliable part. The decimal is not.
What is unusual is how tightly the methods agree. The price sits about 12% above the earnings-power family's central estimate and about the same above the forward-growth family, with the asset-value family about 27% below the price and the peer-multiple family about 28% below. Four different ways of looking at the company, all clustered within a quarter of the market price. Most reports in this corpus describe a spread; this one describes a consensus.
The two methods that land well above the price are the informative exception, and the reason is the whole cyclical problem in one line. Both capitalize free cash flow of about 10.7 billion dollars as though it recurred forever, once as a perpetuity discounted at the cost of equity and once inside a discounted cash-flow model growing three percent from that base. Free cash flow of that size was earned with crude averaging 92.85 dollars a barrel in the June quarter. Capitalizing it is capitalizing an oil price. The exit-multiple version of the same model is more honest about its own assumption, holding today's roughly 7 times EV/EBITDA flat rather than expanding it, and it lands under the price rather than far above it.
Against the cohort, the case for the multiple rests on the margin rather than the growth. EOG's roughly 33.6% trailing operating margin trails only APA at 35.5% and sits above CTRA at 29.9% and PR at 28.1%. On revenue growth the ranking reverses: CTRA grew 32.5%, SM 27.3% and AR 25.6% over the trailing year while EOG grew about 3%. Several of those faster growers bought their growth. EOG bought some too, in the Utica, and still ran the slower top line. What the market is paying for here is the cost structure, not the expansion.
The balance sheet is what makes the cyclical read survivable rather than merely correct. Operating income covers the interest bill better than thirty times over, the revolving facilities went untouched through 2025, and the company retired 56,166,452 shares under its repurchase authorization while carrying the Encino purchase. Total long-term debt did nearly double last year, to 7.91 billion dollars from 4.22 billion, so the cushion is thinner than it was. It is still a cushion that lets management choose when to spend rather than being told.
Catalysts
EOG has scheduled the conference call and webcast for its second-quarter 2026 results on August 5, 2026. The pricing backdrop for that quarter is already on file: West Texas Intermediate averaged 92.85 dollars a barrel and Henry Hub gas 2.89 dollars per million British thermal units, and EOG collected net cash of 45 million dollars from settling its financial commodity derivative contracts over the period. Realizations differ from those benchmarks by location, quality and product mix, so the useful comparison on the day is the first quarter of 2026, when net income came in at $1,980 million against $1,463 million a year earlier.
One contracted item sits further out and is worth marking now. EOG holds a ten-year natural gas sales agreement priced off Brent crude rather than off Henry Hub, and deliveries under it are expected to begin in January 2027. No cash has moved under that contract yet. When it starts, a slice of the gas book stops tracking the North American gas price and starts tracking an oil benchmark instead, which is a meaningful change in what the revenue line responds to.
The sell side has been unusually busy and unusually split in the run-up. Truist cut its target to $134 on July 3 while Jefferies raised its to $175 the following day, and Citi moved down to $141 on July 18. A spread that wide over three weeks, around a share price of $146.39, is not analysts disagreeing about EOG. It is analysts disagreeing about the price of oil.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Trinidad (reported)
- FANG (Diamondback Energy, Inc.)
- FY2025 10-K: …fang:OtherAccruedLiabilitiesCurrentMember us-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel2Member 2025-12-31 0001539838 fang:FairValueOfContingentConsiderationLiabilityMember fang:OtherAccruedLiabilitiesCurrentMember us-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember…
- FY2025 10-K: …srt:MaximumMember fang:ViperEnergyPartnersLLCMember us-gaap:LineOfCreditMember 2025-06-12 2025-06-12 0001539838 us-gaap:UnsecuredDebtMember fang:TermLoan2025Member us-gaap:LineOfCreditMember 2025-03-21 0001539838 us-gaap:UnsecuredDebtMember fang:TermLoan2025Member us-gaap:LineOfCreditMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31…
- PR (PERMIAN RESOURCES CORPORATION)
- FY2025 10-K: …liability to be recognized as of the date of these consolidated financial statements. Note 14-Revenues Revenue from Contracts with Customers Crude oil, NGL and natural gas sales are recognized at the point that control of the product is transferred to the customer and collectability is reasonably assured.…
- FY2025 10-K: …us-gaap:NondesignatedMember pr:NYMEXWTIMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001658566 pr:CrudeOilSwapPeriodThreeMember us-gaap:NondesignatedMember pr:NYMEXWTIMember 2025-12-31 0001658566 pr:CrudeOilSwapPeriodFourMember us-gaap:NondesignatedMember pr:NYMEXWTIMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001658566…
- APA (APA Corporation)
- FY2025 10-K: 272 Foreign subtotal 922 Total $ 999 The Company and its subsidiaries are subject to U.S. federal income tax as well as income tax in various states and foreign jurisdictions. The Company's uncertain tax positions are related to tax years that may be subject to examination by the relevant taxing authority. The…
- FY2025 10-K: …or other governmental bodies with overlapping or evolving mandates. As a result, the Company may encounter inconsistent or shifting application of laws, regulations, contractual terms, or administrative requirements, including additional approvals, documentation requests, or procedural conditions. Compliance with…
- CTRA (COTERRA ENERGY INC.)
- FY2025 10-K: …penalties or both, if fines or penalties are imposed, they may result in monetary sanctions, individually or in the aggregate, in excess of a specified threshold. We have elected to use a $1 million threshold for disclosing governmental proceedings of this nature. We believe proceedings under this threshold are not…
- FY2025 10-K: …Hispanic Bar associations, as well as the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law. Mr. Conaway was appointed Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer in September 2025 after joining Coterra in August 2025 as Vice President - Accounting. Prior to joining Coterra in 2025, Mr. Conaway was the Chief Accounting…
- CHRD (Chord Energy Corp)
- FY2025 10-K: …and environment where we operate. On May 31, 2024, we acquired Enerplus Corporation, a corporation existing under the laws of the Province of Alberta, Canada ("Enerplus") in a stock-and-cash transaction (such transaction, the "Arrangement"). The results of operations and reserves data presented herein report the…
- FY2025 10-K: …had the Arrangement occurred on the basis assumed above, nor is such information indicative of the Company's expected future results. The pro forma results of operations do not include any future cost savings or other synergies that may result from the Arrangement or any estimated costs that have not yet been…
- AR (ANTERO RESOURCES CORPORATION)
- FY2025 10-K: …obligation, to enter into a fixed price swap at a specified future date. Term Loan A Facility . The unsecured three-year term loan facility with the Royal Bank of Canada, RBC Capital Markets and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. dated February 3, 2026 . Tcf . One trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Tcfe . One trillion cubic…
- FY2025 10-K: …excess of, and cost savings below, a specified percentage of budgeted amounts for each annual tranche were for our account. Subject to the preceding sentence, for any wells included in a tranche, QL is obligated and responsible for its working interest share of costs and liabilities, and is entitled to its working…
- SM (SM ENERGY CO)
- FY2025 10-K: …Report on Form 8-K filed on August 20, 2018, and incorporated herein by reference) 4. 4 Fifth Supplemental Indenture, dated as of June 23, 2021, by and between SM Energy Company and U.S. Bank National Association, as trustee (filed as Exhibit 4.2 to the registrant's Current Report on Form 8-K filed on June 23, 2021,…
- FY2025 10-K: …and delivery commitments with various third-parties that require delivery of a minimum amount of oil. As of December 31, 2025, the Company had commitments to deliver a minimum of 49 MMBbl of oil through December of 2032. Certain of these oil delivery commitments may be fulfilled with the same single barrel of oil.…
- CRGY (Crescent Energy Company)
- FY2025 10-K: …Indenture, dated as of March 24, 2025, among Crescent Energy Finance LLC, the guarantors named therein, and U.S. Bank Trust Company, National Association, as trustee (incorporated by reference to Exhibit 4.19 to the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5,…
- FY2025 10-K: …National Association (incorporated by reference to Exhibit 4.4 to the Company's Current Report on Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 15, 2025). 4.39 Indenture, dated as of March 18, 2015, among Laredo Petroleum, Inc., Laredo Midstream Services, LLC, Garden City Minerals, LLC and…
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
company 8-K, July 9, 2026 · company announcement, June 23, 2026 · broker research notes dated July 3, July 4 and July 18, 2026