12%-Yielding MV Oil Trust Stock Up 42% Since March
September 26, 2025
Outlook for MV Oil Trust Remains Robust
Today, I’m taking another look at MV Oil Trust (NYSE:MVO).
Oil prices are down, but they remain volatile, with news coming out virtually every week that sees prices either spike or drop. In early September, oil climbed after Israel struck Hamas leadership in Qatar.
In mid-September, oil gained after Ukrainian drones attacked hit the largest port in Western Russia. Oil prices also went up after President Donald Trump asked European leaders to impose harsher tariffs on Russian oil buyers. This was mainly directed at India and China, the major buyers of Russian oil, which helped finance Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Oil prices are also holding steading on fading concerns that the U.S. will enter a recession. The U.S. economy is showing signs of weakness, but not bad enough for Wall Street to sound the recession alarm.
All of this is great news for domestic energy oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) companies like MV Oil Trust.
MV Oil Trust is an oil and gas E&P company that holds interest in the oil and natural gas properties of MV Partners LLC in Kansas and Colorado. (Source: “Form 10-K,” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, August 12, 2025.)
Whereas most oil and gas E&P companies spend millions of dollars drilling new sites, MV Oil focuses on getting as much as it can out of its existing operations. Then it gives the vast majority of its profits to its unitholders.
On the plus side, because MV Oil Trust pays out all of its cash flow to investors, its dividend yield can be exceptionally high.
At the same time, the trust’s oil and gas wells will eventually run dry. When I wrote about the partnership in February 2022, it had approximately 900 oil and gas wells. Today, MV Oil Trust has approximately 850 producing wells with a projected reserve life of over 35 years.
Announces Distribution of $0.185/Unit
The joy of an oil and gas E&P trust is that it is legally obligated to distribute almost all of its cash flow to unitholders. That’s because it acts as a flow-through entity that passes income to unitholders.
With energy companies like MV Oil Trust, the payout will fluctuate based on cash flow. When the company is running on all cylinders and oil prices are high, this can result in big quarterly payouts.
For example, in July 2022, it paid out $0.70 per unit; in July 2024, it paid out $0.41 per unit. In April 2025, it paid out $0.275 per unit. Right now, oil prices are hovering near $62.00 per barrel, so the payout will be a little less.
In the second quarter of 2025, MV Oil generated 145,027 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) with an average price of $59.82 per boe. This resulted in gross proceeds of $8.67 million. (Source: “MV Oil Trust Announces Second Quarter Distribution,” MV Oil Trust, April 4, 2025.)
This resulted in a quarterly distribution of $2.12 million, or $0.185 per unit. That works out to $0.74 per unit on an annual basis for a frothy dividend yield of 12.21%.
MVO Units Up 42% Since March
MVO units took a nosedive in January. Why? It’s not totally clear. There were concerns about President Trump’s then-proposed tariffs and the impact they would have on the economy.
The moves could also be tied to the company’s quarterly payouts. MV Oil Trust lowered its quarterly dividend from $0.33 per unit in October 2024 to $0.24 per unit in January.
Fortunately, MVO units have been inching higher since then.
Since hitting a 52-week low of $4.29 in early March, MVO units had advanced an impressive 42%.
It’s tough, of course, to gauge what will happen with MVO in the best of times, let alone during a time of wavering tariff threats and concerns about the economy. The units still need to climb 30% just to get to where they were before the tariff noise hit Wall Street. Inking a number of trade deals could assuage that anxiety.
One thing is certain, though, dividend can help smooth out the volatility.
Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com
The Lowdown on MV Oil Trust
MV Oil Trust is an oil and gas exploration and production company with an underlying reserve life of over 35 years. This certainly provides unitholders with an earnings window that stretches decades. And that’s good for dividends.
On the dividend front, supply/demand metrics and the price of oil and gas have a direct impact on earnings and dividends. That’s just something unitholders have to keep in mind. Not every investor likes variable dividends.
But, as long as MVO is pulling oil and gas out of the ground, unitholders will be on the receiving end of a reliable, variable dividend.
