PBF ENERGY INC. (PBF): what the price assumes

boothcheck covers PBF ENERGY INC. (PBF) but does not put one priced-in number on it: here the defensible answer is the evidence rather than a point estimate. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating. Narrative composed 2026-06-28.

Generated: 2026-08-10 · Exported: 2026-08-12 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/PBF

Headline

FieldValue
TickerPBF
CompanyPBF ENERGY INC.
Current price$61.17/sh
CompositionGasoline and distillates 88% / Feedstocks and other 5% / Asphalt and blackoils 4% / Chemicals 2% / Lubricants 1% / Logistics Revenue 1% / Elimination of intercompany revenue -1%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin (value-band context)2.4%
Operating margin today5.8%
Margin compression (value-band)-3.4pp
Multiple paid4x 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.

The price sits below what even a 5%/yr operating-profit decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.

Solve inputs: computed at a 10.1% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

ReferenceValue
vs own history-0.25σ
cohort percentile (of 46 peers)2
implied end-window share0%

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.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset0.51x5justifies
Earnings0.50x5justifies
Relative0.45x5justifies
Growth0.62x3justifies

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 7.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=18)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$229.110.27xyesFCF base $0.7B, growth 14% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 7.2%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$99.180.62xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 4.0x / 3.8x / 8.8x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr
Relative ValuationRelative$115.660.53xyesP/E 10x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 7.5x / 10.0x / 12.0x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 6x
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$120.840.51xyesBV/sh $52.92, ROE (TTM) 21.1%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$181.150.34xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$59.171.03xyesRev $34.4B, growth 14% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.2x / 0.2x / 0.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 6x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$136.560.45xyesEPS $11.38, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=2.73 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$128.040.48xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $1.66B × (1−26%) / WACC 7.2% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$172.370.35xyesBV $52.92 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 21.1% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$116.410.53xyes√(22.5 × EPS $11.38 × BVPS $52.92) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$103.710.59xyesEBITDA $2.36B × sector EV/EBITDA 6.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$53.201.15xyesFCF $742.8M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$50.081.22xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.71B (FCF $0.74B − SBC $0.04B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$367.190.17xyesEPS $11.38 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$86.520.71xyesBV $52.92 × (ROIC 11.8% / WACC 7.2%)
P/Sales SectorRelative$340.700.18xyesRevenue $34.37B × sector P/S 1.2x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$426.750.14xyesEPS $11.38 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$123.030.50xyesEPS $11.38 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

The disclosed units share an operating capital structure; consolidated cash-flow lenses remain coherent and the unit split is explanatory.

UnitRoleValuation basisRevenueReported profitValue evidenceStatus
Refiningoperatingenterprise$29.3b—withheldunresolved no unit value
Logisticsoperatingenterprise$383.5m—withheldunresolved no unit value

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$886.9m
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)0.60x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)0.45x
Interest coverage11.3x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-0.9%
Burning cashno

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Understanding PBF right now starts with understanding what stage it is in: this is a refiner recovering from a major operational disruption, not one in steady state. A February 2025 fire took its Martinez, California refinery offline, and the most recent quarter marks the turn, the plant returned to full planned rates in May 2026. That reframes the trailing numbers. The depressed earnings of the past year reflect a refinery that was not running, not a permanently impaired business, and the recovery of that capacity is the most concrete near-term driver of normalized earnings power.

The balance-sheet repair underneath the recovery is the quieter bull point. PBF has cut its debt-to-equity ratio dramatically over five years, and it has been actively refinancing, pricing new senior notes to redeem higher-cost debt and push out maturities. The Martinez insurance recoveries help: the company has now received $1.0 billion in reimbursements tied to the fire, cash that supports both the balance sheet and the restart. A refiner that has deleveraged into a recovery has more room to ride out the cycle than one that entered it stretched.

The market backdrop is improving in PBF's specific geography. Refinery closures in the U.S. East and West Coast markets have tightened product inventories and lifted profitability across PBF's system. The valuation reflects almost none of this. The stock trades below its book value per share, and the price sits at roughly 10 times mid-cycle operating income, a level the report reads as below what even a modest decline in operating profit would warrant. The bull case is a recovering refiner with a repaired balance sheet, a restarted flagship plant, and a tightening regional product market, all priced as if the business were still in the trough.

Bear Case

The variable with the most leverage on PBF's thesis is one the company does not control and cannot hedge away: California's regulatory trajectory. PBF's West Coast refineries operate in the most aggressive environmental jurisdiction in the country, and the company's own filings spell out the exposure, the state's executive orders push toward zero-emission passenger vehicles by 2035 and the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions threatens higher capital and operating costs "Regulation of emissions of greenhouse gases could force us to incur increased capital expenditures and operating costs and could have a". A refiner whose long-run demand is targeted by policy and whose compliance costs are set by regulators carries a structural headwind that a tightening crack spread does not erase. The Martinez fire was a one-time event; the regulatory pressure is permanent.

The second leverage point is the refining cycle itself. PBF's earnings swing violently with crack spreads, the same operating leverage that produced a turn to operating income this quarter produced large losses the year before, and excluding special items the most recent quarter was still an operating loss. The tightening inventories that help today are a function of refinery closures and supply conditions that can reverse, and a refiner trading on improving margins is trading on a number that history says mean-reverts. The price's apparent cheapness, below book, assumes the assets earn through the cycle; if margins compress, the earnings-power methods that already read the stock as expensive on normalized earnings would be vindicated.

The balance sheet, much improved, still carries the cyclicality risk. Net debt of about $2.3 billion puts leverage near 3.5 times operating income with interest coverage around 3.5 times, comfortable in a strong margin environment and tight in a weak one, because both the numerator of coverage and the denominator of leverage are cyclical. The dividend, at $0.275 a quarter, is modest and well within reach today, but it is a commitment that competes with maintenance capital and debt service when margins fall. The bear does not need Martinez to fail again; it needs the crack spread to revert and California to keep tightening, and a refiner priced for recovery has less margin for either than the below-book multiple suggests.

Valuation

The price asks very little of PBF, which is the starting point. Inverting today's quote, the market pays about 10 times company-wide mid-cycle operating income, a multiple so low that the price sits below what even a 5%-a-year decline in operating profit would warrant. The use of a normalized, mid-cycle earnings base rather than the depressed trailing year matters here: the trailing figures were distorted by the Martinez outage, so the inversion values the assets on their through-cycle economics, and even on that basis the price is undemanding. This is a value and asset read, not a growth bet.

The methods broadly support the price, which is the value signature. The asset-value, earnings-power, and peer-multiple families all land near or above the quote; the stock trades below its book value per share, and the relative lens anchored on a refining-sector P/E near 10x sits close to the price. Among the peers in the refining cohort, the larger integrated refiners disclose their own segment structure, Valero, for instance, breaks out Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol as separate reportable segments "We have three reportable segments-Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol", a reminder that the cohort spans different mixes of the same cyclical economics. The one method that reads PBF as expensive is the earnings-power lens on normalized earnings, which is the honest caution: a refiner is only cheap if its assets actually earn their mid-cycle margin, and that is a cyclical assumption, not a certainty.

Solvency is where the recovery and the cyclicality meet. Net debt of about $2.3 billion runs near 3.5 times operating income with coverage around 3.5 times, manageable but cyclical, and the company has been deleveraging and refinancing to extend maturities. The Martinez insurance recoveries, $1.0 billion received, are a one-time cash inflow that strengthens the balance sheet through the restart. PBF also holds about $833 million of equity stakes outside the core operating value, an additional downside anchor. The street's mean target sits near the current quote, with a wide spread between the bull and bear cases, crediting the recovery this frame treats as the open question. The decisive number is the normalized refining margin the assets can sustain, because that is what turns a below-book price into a bargain or a value trap.

Catalysts

PBF's first quarter of 2026, reported in early May, was the recovery quarter. Income from operations swung to $299.6 million from a $511.2 million operating loss a year earlier, and net income was $200.2 million, or $1.65 a share. The reported figures were lifted by Martinez insurance recoveries; excluding special items, the quarter was still an operating loss of $108.4 million, a sharp improvement from the prior-year loss but a reminder that the underlying refining environment was not yet fully healed.

The defining operational event is the Martinez refinery restart. Following the February 2025 fire, the plant progressed toward full planned rates and reached them in May 2026, restoring a major piece of PBF's West Coast capacity. The company has now received $1.0 billion in total insurance reimbursements related to the fire, including a fourth installment of $106.5 million in the quarter.

On the financial side, PBF declared a quarterly dividend of $0.275 a share and continued repairing its balance sheet, pricing new senior notes due 2034 to redeem higher-cost 2028 debt and extend maturities. Analyst sentiment is cautious, with a hold consensus and a wide spread of price targets reflecting disagreement over where refining margins settle. The figures to watch are the normalized refining margins now that Martinez is back, and any movement in California's regulatory posture that changes the long-run cost base.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Refining (reported)

Logistics (reported)

Methodology Note

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

PBF Q1 2026 earnings release, May 2026 · PBF debt-refinancing disclosures, 2026 · PBF Q1 2026 and May 2026 disclosures · PBF dividend declaration and debt-refinancing disclosures, 2026 · analyst consensus tally, June 2026

View the full interactive PBF report on boothcheck