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Known largely for its gas stations located next to Walmart stores, this chain continues to expand its 1,500-location footprint.

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The company owns gas stations and convenience stores in 26 states, usually placed adjacent to the stores owned by its partner, Walmart.

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Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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Murphy USA operates more than 1,700 gasoline and convenience stores across 27 states under the Murphy USA, Murphy Express, and QuickChek brands. Founded in 1996, the company was spun off from Murphy Oil Corporation and has since grown into a major player in the fuel retail sector.

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Murphy USA (MUSA): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Murphy USA

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I would like to welcome everyone to the Murphy USA Q1 2026 Earnings Q&A Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background calls. If you would like to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question press star one again. I would now like to turn the call over to Christian Pikul. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks, Melissa. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us. With me this morning are Mindy West, President and CEO, Donald Smith, CFO, and Ash Aulds, Director of Investor Relations and FP&A. Before we get started, I need to remind everybody to refer to the forward-looking statements commentary we included in our prepared remarks yesterday. I also assume you have all read through our earnings release and the prepared remarks. We have read your notes. I have a few comments before we open it up for Q&A. First, I hope that you notice we are rebranding the PS&W plus RINs business and simply calling it fuel supply going forward. We provided a lengthy justification for that change, along with a detailed explanation of fuel supply results. I hope that was helpful.

Second, we sent a follow-up note to our sell-side analyst, but I did wanna take the opportunity to clarify our comments on April volumes being flat to prior year. That metric is on an average per store month basis, not total volume. I wanted to point out that distinction. Lastly, as we will likely discuss, Q1 was strong, but we are focused on building shareholder value over the long term. We're pleased with the way the business performed in the Q1, but our focus remains on making Murphy USA better in any environment, increasing the earnings power of the company in both favorable and unfavorable environments. With that, Melissa, please go ahead and open us up for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your keypad. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Yes, thank you for that explanation on PS&W and fuel supply. Very much appreciated. Obviously, you said, Christian, this very strong start to the year. Certainly, the momentum seems to be very good. What circumstances would have to occur in order for the balance of the year to take you to a place where you do not exceed the 2026 guidance, which didn't seem to be updated? Thank you.

Good morning, Irene. Great question. I think it would take a lot to not exceed at this point, given the amount that we're up in the Q1 alone. I think that yes, we could definitely say that the guidance that we gave is a little on the light side, but nevertheless, we did not update the guidance, and we typically don't following Q1, and we don't wanna get in the habit of doing that. There's just simply too much volatility, too many unknowns early in the year to have a really accurate forecast. Our guidance, as you may remember, was built around very low volatility, low price environment. Obviously, now we are in a different situation. Honestly, my crystal ball isn't gonna be any better than yours.

This is unprecedented volatility and geopolitical risk, and it's changing every day, minute by minute. I honestly wouldn't know what fuel margin to put into the model to give you an accurate forecast. At this point in the year, just not going to update. What we will do, though, is wake up every day, react to market conditions on that day. We know we have to be nimble, change our playbook as needed, and ensure that the business delivers the best outcome, whatever the environment is throughout the remainder of the year. That's really all I can say about where we might end up year-end.

Obviously, our guidance that we gave last quarter is gonna end up being on the conservative side. The year's gonna be what it is. It's too soon to tell now exactly what that will be. We're gonna remain focused on execution.

That's really helpful. Thank you. Just as a follow-up, sort of it comes back to a little bit of what you said about the fuel margin, but you know, that $0.069 per gallon from, let's call it, you know, inventory gains in fuel supply. How should we think about the evolution of that number as we go through the year?

Fuel supply results were high in the Q1, as we explained. The core business, though, generated the, you know, $0.025, excluding the impact of those higher prices. If prices continue to increase, you should expect the positive inventory valuations in that part of the business. If prices decline, you're gonna get the opposite of impact, but at the same time, that should serve to expand retail margins at the same time. Hopefully, volume as well, as we can put some of that margin on the street to create separation and have chances to gain volume. That part of the business is gonna continue to be volatile month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, and largely dependent on the direction of prices, but also the magnitude and duration of those price changes.

Our next question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

All right. Thank you. Good morning. I did have a question on the consumer. I guess I'm, you know, wondering, Mindy, if your outlook for the consumer has changed. You know, I'm thinking about in the context of, you know, prices at the pump tracking, you know, around $4 a gallon across the nation. Curious to hear, you know, how have purchasing patterns maybe changed, especially for the lower income consumers, if at all. Then are you seeing, you know, more consumers down trading, you know, potentially to your stores? Is this an opportunity, for instance, for you to gain share? You know, any kind of change behavior at the pump would be helpful. Thanks.

Good morning, Bonnie. Great question. I'll start first with a trade down because candidly, by the time customers are shopping at Murphy USA. for our everyday low prices, much of that traditional trade down has already occurred. As a result, we really see relatively little pressure, especially in the non-discretionary categories, even in the higher price environments. What we know is our everyday low price model is what brings customers in the door, and then once they become regular shoppers, we just don't see significant trade down behavior within the store. What we do see and will see are some different decisions being made inside the store in discretionary categories like salty snacks or really even lottery, where there are just more venues and opportunities available to customers to participate in that.

Remember what we said in the prepared remarks, the Murphy customer is maintaining their spend in our store. Results are actually stronger. Our non-nicotine sales were up 2% with margins up over 4% at Murphy stores. We are still seeing strength in that core customer. We're seeing margin growth across most of the inside the store categories. I'll remind you, while that does speak to who our customer is, it also has a lot to do with our team and our offer, because that margin growth doesn't come automatically. Our team has to look to innovate for new promotions and vendor partnerships. We'll keep at it and do a great job because we're seeing the results. What is interesting to see at these higher prices is we are seeing new customers coming into our stores.

We're also seeing lapsed customers returning to our stores. That's telling us two really key things. First, they're changing their behavior and becoming more value-seeking shoppers, which is what we would expect. Second, and this one is really important, they remember Murphy USA as a low price retailer, and we are their store of choice when they are seeking value and low price goods in the store and low price fuel. We know we have the right to keep this customer, and they're gonna return to us in periods of higher prices, and we're encouraged so far by what we're seeing already.

All right. That's helpful. If I may just ask, you know, as a follow-up, I guess, on a different topic, because I do wanna comment on your, you know, newly dubbed fuel supply business, and I definitely appreciate that and all the colors. I think that's really helpful. I guess I'm curious to maybe understand a little bit more about the benefit from RINs, which was really huge in Q1. You know, just monitoring those prices across the board do remain quite high. Just wanna make sure I understand, you know, how we should think about the magnitude of the contribution you could recognize, you know, from fuel supply in Q2. Thank you.

Bonnie, we really look at it on a blended basis. You see the windfall in RINs because we report that as a separate category, but they're really just a pass through because that, the RIN value is actually factored into the acquisition cost when we purchase the product. With sustained movement in one direction over a quarter, yes, they can have a slight impact over a short period of time. Over time, those impacts cancel out, as RIN prices move up and down. That's really just a part of the fuel supply business that's already reflected in what we paid for the product to begin with.

As we look at the quarter, if you're trying to land at what could product supply and wholesale be for, I can't really speak for the quarter, but for the month of April, I know we guided you guys in the speech that we were going to be, you know, $0.35-$0.40 a gallon.

What we are comfortable saying with the books obviously not closed on the month yet, is we're expecting retail somewhere in the low 30s. That would imply product supply and wholesale would be, I don't wanna give an exact amount, but trend above the normal levels that we would expect to see, just because of the, you know, volatility that we're continuing to see in the market.

All makes sense. Thank you. I'll pass it on.

Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Palmer with JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for the question. In some of the earlier answers, you've noted the price advantage versus competitors and how that's aided maybe some customer choices in terms of shifting towards you. I did wanna ask how you think about the relative pricing advantages that you have as you watch fuel prices migrate higher. Do you think about the level of discount that attracts customers as perhaps being different? Maybe, like, less discounting is needed relative to the environment when fuel prices are lower and more stable.

Sure, Thomas. We've said before that last year was the very low price environment that was making our value-seeking customer less price sensitive. We were putting roughly $0.02 a gallon on the street to hold our volumes, given the low prices and customer price sensitivity, but also competition. When we said that, remember that $0.02 is not necessarily chain-wide. It's concentrated in certain areas. Where competition is very intense, we were putting more than $0.02 on. Other places where the competitive pressure was not so much, it was less than $0.02. I think as we return to a higher price environment, we will have to be less aggressive. Again, in certain markets, we are still going to price where we need to hang on to volume as we see competitive pressures.

Okay. Thank you for that. Just maybe an update given the likely elevated cash flow that's resulting from the strong earnings on capital allocation priorities and likely uses of this excess cash. Thanks.

Yeah, it's gonna be a good problem to have. First column capital is always gonna be the growth CapEx. We are committed to building our 45 to 55 sites for the year, so that's gonna be the first priority. We will also look to balance that with ratable share repurchases as well. There may be also some opportunities if we need to procure some supplies in order to bolster our new-to-industry stores. You know, we need to go out and buy tanks, we need to go out and proactively buy other things, we will certainly do that. Deleveraging could be an option, but honestly, given our very low leverage ratio, it's not going to be a high priority, but that could factor in at some point.

You know, I think what we're gonna do, the priority is gonna stay the same with making sure that we are managing our growth layer in some reasonable amount of share repurchase and, as I started by saying, it's a great problem to have.

The next question comes from the line of Bobby Griffin with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions, and appreciate all the detail on the prepared remarks last night. I guess, Mindy, when you kind of think about what's developed here geopolitically and some of the changes inside the supply market, what do you look at or what should we be thinking about when we try to determine how much of this we can capitalize going further? I guess I'm asking that more in the context of like, what needs to take place or has it already taken place to move the market back from loose to tight and keep it more in a tight supply market on multiple quarters versus just a short-term benefit? If that all makes sense.

It does make sense. Good morning, Bobby. Great question. I would say that the market is moving closer to balance than what it was. What I would look at is we're seeing increasing exports. Total motor gasoline inventories in the U.S. have now returned to the five-year average level, so they're not, you know, beneath it, but that has removed the overhang from last year. We're also seeing supply replenishment slowing globally, and there's a lot of market concern, especially for diesel and jet fuel. Remains to be seen the amount of damage to infrastructure that might have occurred overseas and the time that's gonna need to recover. We could see some supply pressure the longer this goes on, which would work to our benefit with our unique ways that we can procure supply.

Additionally, I think, one of the investment banks just increased their Brent and WTI forecast for the end of year by $10. That would work to our benefit as well. Obviously, keeping prices higher, that will continue to impact customer sensitivity. You know, I would expect that there is going to be some tightness in supply in certain pockets throughout at least the rest of this quarter and probably through the summer. There are still a lot of unknowns there, but those are the things that we're looking at. How long does this conflict last? When does the strait open? How much damage to infrastructure is there? What is the timeframe needed in order to get that back up online?

Okay. That's all. I appreciate it. Then maybe switching gears and going inside the store. I think you called out the Murphy's non-nicotine was up too, so it kind of implies the drag here on the same stores being down one is in the northeast on QuickChek. I know there's been some things you guys have been working on, just maybe curious you kind of unpack some of the progress there. You know, is the drag still just competition and QSR factors or anything else for us to kind of glean out of that?

Yes, a lot of it is just that drag in the northeast region where we're experiencing a lot of QSR pressures. It's just a different competitive situation than what we have in our MUSA markets. We're not sitting still, though. We are taking steps to try to improve the business. We're focusing on the core items and the food offer. Think coffee, breakfast, sandwiches. We're really simplifying the menu, rationalizing the assortment, improving the margin. One of the other things that we're doing that I really think is gonna help is we are actively working to evolve the culture inside the QuickChek stores into a sales-first mentality. That's something that we successfully leverage at Murphy USA, and it's something that is not part of their DNA the same way it is in ours.

It's really an intentional change supported by the leadership changes that we've already made in that business. It's too soon to really give you proof points. We are just in the early stages of that, but we are really excited about what kind of impact that we're going to have there. This shift in focus is going to make our promotional calendar even more effective, similar to how well we execute large promotional opportunities at our Murphy stores. We should also see benefits that will help drive all the center-of-the-store categories, not just food and beverage. We also know we need to double down on efficiency, we need to improve time to serve, and we need to ensure our sales and promotional calendars are reinforced with products with the right margin structure versus making up ways to drive traffic that are not margin accretive.

I'm really excited to see how a sales culture at QuickChek can be implemented and really drive results, 'cause I think that we're gonna be really happy with the result, and I know they are really excited up there to make that change.

Thank you. I appreciate all the details. Best of luck here in Q2.

The next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi, good morning. You know, looking at gallons, your gallon performance wasn't quite as positive as I thought it would be with prices rising. I know there's some weather impact, beyond weather, even that seems to be the case. April seems a little bit better. Maybe there's some lag in the trade-down. I'm just kinda curious, are you seeing the, you know, consumer trade-down taking place as you would've expected this quarter? Is there anything else happening there?

Yeah. What I would tell you is volume uplift from higher prices takes time, and we're really too early in that cycle. Many markets were only in the mid $3 range as they exited March, and historically, we really see pronounced shifts once prices stay elevated and particularly elevated above $4 for a sustained period. In April, we are seeing volumes holding up well, roughly flat year-over-year. As the longer the prices stay high, the more customers we attract, but that shift doesn't happen all at once. It's more a gradual build. In fact, only a quarter of our chain is sitting at or above the $4 level now. Importantly, though, for our Murphy Drive Rewards, we saw approximately 600,000 more loyalty signups.

That's the highest monthly total that we have seen since 2022, and we are viewing that as a really strong signal of those customers actively seeking value and choosing Murphy as part of their everyday routine. Also remember, though, that price-sensitive customers are only one factor that impacts volume. You can't discount the market dynamics in different geographies and different competitive intensities. Colorado continues to see volume pressure. Because we're growing there, everyone else is growing there too. We are seeing some signs of market stabilization, though, as margins are now returning to a more new normal. Markets like Florida, we're still seeing highly competitive activity, so that's pressuring both volume and margin in that region.

It's not a single market, there are many markets in Florida that are still in a highly competitive phase as everyone is trying to attract their fair share of customers. We can look at Texas, which we would call a more mature market, and while there's still these stores, new store opportunities in the market, the players are already well established, and so there's not as much volume and margin pressure in a state like that. When we look at the quarter, weather was also definitely a headwind. We would estimate that headwind, I think when we looked at it last year, it was roughly 2%. It's probably a bit more than that this year, given the sheer number of closures that we had and the duration.

You know, if you just say it was 2%, that was definitely a headwind that would have made our volumes for the quarter up versus down had those not occurred. Also, when we look at OPIS and examine that versus our data, it would tell us that we're outperforming in all of our regions, even with all those pressures. I think the price sensitivity will come. It's just too early in the cycle as most of these, all this price pressure really happened in March. Those customers have only had a paycheck or two, a fill-up or two. They haven't even received their credit card statements for those purchases yet, it's just gonna take some time.

Great. Thanks for that color. I just wanted to follow up on, store, operating expense. Really well controlled, in Q1. You know, looks like you're running below the full year guide. Can you just talk a little bit more about the changes you made to the store labor model and the impact that's having and how we should be thinking about, APSM growth, moving forward the rest of the year?

Yeah. We take the roughly flat increase as a very positive data point. We think it's demonstrating our ability to implement the self-help that we did last year, controlling what we could during challenging periods. That's giving us benefits now. What we're seeing is benefits continuing in the store labor model, making sure that we have the stores adequately staffed during the busy times, but not overly staffed when they're not busy. Continuing to fine-tune the labor model. Continuing progress on shrink, where we have made it a focus area. We've also incorporated it as a goal for the sales team. We're paying a lot of attention to that.

Also, the shift in maintenance mindset, so going from a proactive, being more proactive and taking a business mindset versus an administrative approach, where we were, in the past, just trying to clear the tickets. Now, we're taking a step back and prioritizing tickets and batching tickets where possible. I use the example in an investor presentation, where when one light bulb goes out in the canopy, instead of calling in a tech and having the site visit cost, the cost for the special scissor lift that it takes to get you on the canopy, why don't we wait till the second light bulb goes out? It's not causing a material, you know, discrepancy in the illumination with one bulb down. Things like that may seem small, but over the course.

When you spread that over 1,800 stores, those little things can quickly become big things. We're just taking a different approach to the way we're thinking about maintenance, thinking about it more from a business standpoint versus just trying to clear the tickets. As a reminder though, as our new stores enter the network, we do expect roughly half of our OpEx growth to reflect that with the same store to trend, at least in line, if not better than our peers. When we look at our 26 guidance, we're ahead of that right now. As we feather in our new stores, we do expect to get more back in line of our guidance range in the second half as those stores come online.

The next question comes from the line of Jacob Aiken-Phillips with Melius Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, congrats on the strong quarter. Mindy, I know you've been in the business a long time, but your first full quarter as the CEO, and the environment's completely shifted. I'm curious if the new environment has changed your thinking about experimentation, growth investment, self-help initiatives, or capital allocation or anything.

It's been an interesting turn of events, one that quite frankly I didn't expect during the quarter. It doesn't change our overall strategy. We're gonna continue to lean into everyday low price. That's staying the same. Continuous improvement mindset, we're only going to accelerate that going forward. Capital allocation remaining unchanged. We are pushing an innovation agenda. We wanna collaborate quicker. We wanna try and test new things. That unlock was something, though, that I talked about even. It doesn't diminish in importance just because the fuel macro environment is different. We know that we still need to improve the underlying business of our same stores. We also need to make decisions that can improve the trajectory of what we're going to be building that's new in the future.

While it's easier to have a call when things are, you know, going like they're going now, it doesn't change the focus and the intensity of our efforts in needing to improve the business going forward, because we can't always count on an environment like this sustaining.

All right. On nicotine, last year there was a concern when there was a promotion that, it should be viewed as one-off, but clearly, like, you're still performing super strongly in nicotine. Can you give us color on just-

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.

Hey, sorry, guys, apparently we cut out. I don't know where we left off. Jacob, can you queue us up?

Oh, yeah. I'll just say the question again. On nicotine, last year there was concern that it was like a one-off promotional activation and that it wouldn't repeat. Clearly you're still doing very well in the nicotine category. Can you talk a bit about the promotional environment now and throughout the year and what gives you confidence that that's actually a durable component? I'm sure having 600K additional rewards members helps.

Yes, the reward membership definitely does help. Look, we love the category. We put a lot of attention on it. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, promotional activity has been favorable in the Q1, and we're continuing to see strong performance, even as we go into April. We're continuing to grow share and accelerating growth in that category. It's really growing at a very rapid pace. Importantly, customers are still trying to figure out their desired flavor and strength. There's really no clear winners yet. Manufacturers know this, so they're investing in trial. You'll see, similar to energy drinks, you're gonna see continued strong promotional activities as those brands invest to try to gain that customer.

We're going to continue to be a preferred retailer for those manufacturers to pass through savings and attract those customers, especially as they target combustible customers, where our share in cigarettes is 20%. We are ideally situated, happy to help their promotional efforts, and have demonstrated the ability with them to hold on to those customers post-promo as we continue to gain share. I do want to remind everybody remembers the promotion we did back in Q3, that is going to be a very tough comparison in Q3 when we lap that. We're probably going to want to look at a two-year stack as we progress through 2026, but we are going to continue to get promotional dollars.

We're likely not gonna have a promotion as lumpy as that particular one was, but we do see strength in the category, and we do have intentions and the ability to continue to grow share.

Our next call comes from the line of Brad Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks so much. Mindy, I wanted to ask about the exciting opportunity here to be picking up some incremental customers. I know that this will all depend on how long gas prices stay high and how high they go, but can you give us any perspective of historically the company's ability to retain incremental customers that they've brought in during periods like this? What is the company doing differently or may do differently, you know, as the months and quarters go on here at elevated gasoline prices? Thanks.

Well, I think our loyalty initiatives are key. You know, Murphy Drive Rewards, QuickChek Rewards. What we're seeing is new member counts are up, and we would expect that. We saw the same thing when we saw prices spike in 2022. The 600,000 new members was the highest new member month that we have on record. We're also seeing an increase in overall active members that are up 8.5% year-over-year in March. Total transactions up around 12% also. You see the dynamic of those customers. Yes, they're buying slightly less per fuel trip, but they're having to come in more often. These digital programs, these loyalty programs, are more valuable to customers as they become more and more price sensitive.

As I mentioned earlier, what we're really excited to see is those new or lapsed customers, the lapsed customers returning to our sites, new customers that we're acquiring because of these higher prices, and we become the store of choice because we are everyday low price. I'm sorry, Brad, what was the, your other question? What are we doing differently because prices are high?

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, really just around the idea of retention, if there's anything that you are considering changing about the loyalty program and how you market to customers, et cetera, to try to retain more of these potential folks coming in your stores in this current environment.

You know, we continue to make our digital programs more sophisticated, being able to tailor offers to customers. We will certainly continue to leverage that. Honestly, everyday low price is everyday low price. It just means more when prices are high and budgets are constrained. Importantly, we sell a great deal of what is called non-discretionary categories, so things like fuel and nicotine, where we are the lowest price out there. Customers know that, and the offer resonates even more in this type of environment. No, we're not necessarily doing a lot of things new, but we really don't need to.

That's great. If I could ask just a follow-up around sort of the underlying Murphy store model, the question that investors were all asking last year was, you know, does it need to evolve because of industry conditions? Clearly what's setting up in 2026 is it's a great model. As you consider the opportunity to expand food or, in the case of the site that's got reduced labor, will there be any incremental investments or testing, because the year is shaping up to be so different here?

I wouldn't say it's because the year is shaping up to be different. I feel the same way about it this quarter as I did last quarter, that absolutely part of our innovation agenda is about evaluating new formats that can profitably serve more customers and more locations. We're also going to look to think about what is the next layer of products and services and trip missions that customers would buy from us. Then obviously, how do we maximize the productivity of the stores we have? I think, yes, our model needs to evolve. I think both our format needs to evolve. Also, what we have in it likely needs to evolve.

Whether that evolves to a full food offer in Murphy USA location, what I would say is not necessarily, and certainly not everywhere. We're gonna be very thoughtful about how we step into that. I don't wanna really provide a lot of color on what we are testing and what we are looking at because it's very early days. They need time to, you know, incubate and prove themselves out. Honestly, we're gonna probably hit some singles and doubles. We'll probably strike out on several things as well. The focus isn't changed just because the year is shaping up differently. We know that next year may look different, the next year may look different from that.

We're here for the long run, we need to make sure that our format and our offer is evolving, meeting the customer where they are, meeting their expectations, and also giving them value in everyday low price.

The next question comes from the line of Pooran Sharma with Stephens Inc. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for the question and congrats on the strong results. Maybe just wanted to ask if you could speak to the structural pressure on higher fuel margins, kind of the longer term structural pressure. You kind of alluded to it in your release and on the call and more specifically in this type of environment where you see a strong rise in wholesale fuel prices or RBOB, you would expect to see retail, the retail side of the equation more challenged. But you've seen it hold up. What do you think is driving that? Do you think this type of dynamic, where you have really high fuel prices, facilitates that thesis even more?

I think that's a great question and an interesting idea. I think you're probably right. I think what we're seeing is that marginal retailer becomes that much more on the margin when prices are what they are. They feel even more pinched. We saw this start when, in the Ukraine invasion back in 2002, where competitors were restoring, you know, multiple times a day. They were pre-restoring ahead of what they felt was gonna be a price increase the next day. We're seeing that kind of again. I think that when things get really tight, people become less comfortable riding it out and more eager to go ahead and relieve the pressure. I definitely think that that is playing into it, the fact that the marginal retailer becomes that much more on the margin.

We've also seen a lot of competitive entry in markets, and the cost to serve doesn't go down when that happens, and those retailers are gonna need to make a margin on those stores as well. They're gonna feel the pressure also when prices rise. They're gonna wanna keep up with that fairly quickly as well. I think both of those dynamics are in play. It definitely is unusual that in a period of rising prices, that we would be able to post positive fuel supply results, but also, a fairly good margin as well, and that dynamic is playing out again in the month of April too.

Okay. Appreciate the color there and the thoughts on that. I wanted to kind of get more specific on my follow-up on the, I guess just what you've seen thus far through April. The $0.05, I think $0.05 or so of PS&W margin. Does that include kind of the current price spikes that we've seen up since the start of the quarter? Do you expect some normalization from those price spikes from RBOB? Just wanted to just get a better understanding of the RBOB commentary.

Well, it reflects what we think we know at this point with the books not closed. You can appreciate there's a lot of moving pieces with that fuel supply part of the business. All that we're really comfortable commenting on now, we know that retail margins are around $0.30 a gallon or in the low 30s. We think we're gonna be in the range of $0.35-$0.40, and that's counting all of the volatility that we've seen, the price rises that we've seen, that we're accounting for that both on the retail side when I say retail margin, but also the product supply and wholesale side. Appreciate that this part of the business can make large swings from day to day. Until we close the books, we really don't know where we are precisely.

Appreciate that. Thank you for the color.

The next question comes from the line of Corey Tarlowe with Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Mindy, I was just wondering if you could walk through the trends that you saw maybe by month in the quarter. The reason I ask is because I believe you were lapping some pretty significant storm storms from the prior year. I was wondering if you could talk about volume and merchandise trends, maybe on a monthly basis, if you could, to kind of give us more color on what you saw throughout the quarter. Thanks so much.

Yeah. Start of the year, fairly strong. Again, completely different fuel environment, so you can appreciate that price-sensitive customer wasn't quite as price sensitive. We definitely saw some momentum as we got into March that we didn't see January, February. On the fuel side, obviously the margin exploded during the month of March, was challenged when we looked at the January and February. I apologize, I didn't bring, you know, month-by-month comparisons. Over the course of the quarter, when we saw the volatility return to the market, we saw customers behaving differently inside our stores. They were pressured, but they were still spending money, especially on the non-discretionary part of the basket. Obviously, the fuel volume will come with time.

It just hasn't had enough time to season for that customer to really return in droves. The loyalty sign-ups that we're seeing are a really key leading indicator for us that tells us that we are gonna gain momentum, as, especially as we go into the summer, if prices are still high.

Got it. Then just on the PS&W business, and again, I recognize it's only a month of data, but as you think about sort of the close to 10 that we saw in Q1 and the close to five or thereabout, where you're seeing so far in April. Could you just talk to the driver behind that change specifically, if there is anything meaningful to call out? Is it the variability within pricing? Curious what you saw.

Yeah. It's the variability within the price environment. Just the magnitude and the direction of the price movements were magnified in the month of March, in particular. While we're continuing to see prices rise in the month of April, it hasn't been as dramatic. You would not expect products supply and wholesale results in that month to be as strong as what they were in March.

... I can't, certainly can't extrapolate that out over the full quarter. Remains to be seen.

Got it. Thanks so much. Appreciate the help. Best of luck.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mindy West for closing remarks.

Thank you so much for your participation today, really, thank you for your interest in Murphy USA. I hope you guys are getting a better understanding that the Q1 results were not simply a byproduct of volatility and the price-related impacts, because our team works really hard to optimize that volume margin relationship. We're also seeing benefits in the work we've done to make merchandise and store operations more resilient. Sitting here last quarter, we talked about what a return to volatility could mean. Did not see it happening really at all this year, much less, so much so fast.

Obviously, a lot can change just in a few months. That said, the reverse can also happen. We are not relaxing because the macro is going our way. What did we emphasize in the Q1? We emphasized improving the business. What are we focused on now? The same thing. Volatility does work in our favor, and you can see that in our results, but we can't rely on volatility. We talked about it in some of these questions. Our focus hasn't changed since last quarter. We're not relaxing because the environment has improved. We can't. We have work to do to grow the business.

Murphy USA (MUSA) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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