ConocoPhillips Reports on 5 November: Whether Costs Hold as Prices Rise Decides the Quarter
ConocoPhillips reports third-quarter results on 5 November, with consensus at $3.05 EPS on $18.57 billion of revenue, up 89% and 24% from a year earlier. The quarter turns on margin conversion: whether a flat cost base keeps turning higher prices into operating profit as it did in the second quarter.
Maz Vantage Research ·
ConocoPhillips reports its third-quarter 2026 results on Thursday, 5 November. The consensus is unusually demanding against last year: analysts expect earnings almost to double on revenue that is up by roughly a quarter. That gap only closes if the cost base stays put while realised prices rise.
What the street expects
The consensus calls for adjusted EPS of $3.05 on revenue of $18.57 billion. A year ago, in the third quarter of 2025, ConocoPhillips earned $1.61 per share on revenue of $15.03 billion.
| Q3 | Consensus Q3 2026 | Actual Q3 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS (adjusted) | $3.05 | $1.61 | +89% |
| Revenue | $18.57B | $15.03B | +24% |
Changes are simple arithmetic on the consensus and last year's reported figures.
Sequentially, the bar is slightly lower. In the second quarter the company reported adjusted EPS of $3.24 on revenue of $19.52 billion, so the consensus assumes EPS about 6% lower and revenue about 5% lower than three months ago. The question is whether most of the second-quarter jump holds.
The track record
ConocoPhillips has been a reliable beater on the top line and a mostly reliable one on earnings:
- Q2 2026: EPS $3.24 vs $2.90 expected; revenue $19.52B vs $18.79B — beat on both.
- Q1 2026: EPS $1.89 vs $1.72; revenue $16.05B vs $15.62B — beat on both.
- Q4 2025: EPS $1.02 vs $1.07; revenue $14.19B vs $13.95B — EPS miss, revenue beat.
- Q3 2025: EPS $1.61 vs $1.41; revenue $15.03B vs $14.61B — beat on both.
That is four revenue beats out of four and three EPS beats out of four. The one miss came in the weakest quarter of the run, when revenue was at its low point, which points to the same theme as this preview: earnings at ConocoPhillips are far more sensitive to price than to anything management does in a single quarter.
The line that decides the quarter
The line to watch is the margin between revenue and the cost of producing it, or put simply, how much of each extra dollar of price reaches operating profit.
The filed accounts show how sharply that conversion has improved this year. Cost of revenue has barely moved: $11.41 billion in Q3 2025, $10.82 billion in Q4 2025, $11.47 billion in Q1 2026 and $12.13 billion in Q2 2026. Revenue, meanwhile, swung from $13.39 billion in the fourth quarter to $19.16 billion in the second quarter (income-statement basis). The result, on our arithmetic from the statements:
- Gross margin: 24.1% in Q3 2025, 19.2% in Q4 2025, 27.3% in Q1 2026 and 36.7% in Q2 2026.
- Operating margin: 18.3%, 13.1%, 21.5% and 31.2% over the same four quarters.
Between Q3 2025 and Q2 2026, revenue rose by $4.13 billion and operating income by $3.22 billion, meaning roughly 78 cents of each additional revenue dollar fell through to operating profit (simple arithmetic on the reported figures).
That is why the consensus can ask for 89% EPS growth on 24% revenue growth. It also means the downside works the same way. If realised prices in the quarter came in lower than the second quarter's, or if costs stepped up with higher activity, the drop-through runs in reverse. Recent coverage puts Brent crude near $104 a barrel (24/7 Wall St, 29 October), which supports the price side. The cost line is where a surprise would come from. A cost of revenue near the $11 billion to $12 billion range of the past year would make the consensus look reachable. A clear step above it would not.
The diluted share count also fell 2.6% between Q3 2025 and Q2 2026, from 1.247 billion to 1.214 billion, which lifts per-share growth on its own.
Valuation and the Maz Rating
At $146.84, after a 4.7% fall in the latest session, ConocoPhillips has a market value of about $176 billion and trades at 19.4 times trailing earnings. The trailing multiple still reflects the weaker 2025 quarters. On forward adjusted earnings, the site's data puts it nearer 13.5 times. The dividend runs at $3.36 a share over the past year, a trailing yield of about 2.3%. The analyst price-target consensus is $156.77 (median $157, range $130 to $189), about 7% above the current price.
On Maz Vantage, ConocoPhillips carries a Maz Rating of 4.59 out of 5 (Strong Buy). The factor scores explain the split: Momentum 4.67, Profitability 4.59 and Financial Health 4.22 are strong, while Growth (2.88) and Valuation (2.32) are middling against the energy sector. In other words, the rating rests on the margins and the balance sheet that this quarter is meant to confirm, rather than on a cheap price.
Bottom line
The headline EPS number matters less than how it is reached. If ConocoPhillips delivers roughly $3 of EPS with a cost of revenue in line with the past four quarters, the second-quarter margin step-up looks durable and the consensus was set fairly. If revenue holds but costs rise, the 78-cent drop-through of the past year shrinks and the quarter reads as weaker than the headline. Watch the cost line first, then the operating margin against Q2's 31.2%.
This is a preview based on published consensus and filed accounts, not investment advice.