What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Marathon Petroleum (MPC) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Marathon Petroleum generated $9.44B of operating cash flow and $5.7B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 60.4% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Marathon Petroleum (MPC) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Marathon Petroleum's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Marathon Petroleum (MPC) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$9.44B

Capex

-$3.74B

Free Cash Flow

$5.7B

FCF Margin

+60.4%

Cash flow waterfall for Marathon Petroleum (MPC) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $5.7B

Cash flow breakdown for Marathon Petroleum (MPC) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$9.44B	$9.44B
Capital Expenditure	-$3.74B	$5.7B
Free Cash Flow	$5.7B	$5.7B
Acquisitions	-$2.18B	$3.52B
Other Investing	-$175M	$3.35B
Share Buybacks	-$3.18B	$166M
Dividends Paid	-$1.15B	-$984M
Net Debt Change	$1.16B	$171M
Other Financing & FX	-$1.83B	-$1.66B
Net Cash Decrease	-$1.66B	-$1.66B

Operating Cash Flow$9.44B
Capital Expenditure-$3.74B
Free Cash Flow$5.7B
Acquisitions-$2.18B
Other Investing-$175M
Share Buybacks-$3.18B
Dividends Paid-$1.15B
Net Debt Change$1.16B
Other Financing & FX-$1.83B
Net Cash Decrease-$1.66B

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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