MPLX LP Stock: 7.7% Yield, Fresh ‘Moderate Buy’ Rating and What 2026 Could Look Like for Income Investors

As of December 6, 2025, MPLX LP (NYSE: MPLX) trades just under its 52‑week high at around $55–56 per unit, up roughly the mid‑teens over the past year and boasting a forward yield of about 7.7% on an annualized distribution of $4.31 per unit. ^[1]

On the same day, MarketBeat highlighted that Wall Street’s consensus on MPLX is a “Moderate Buy”, with an average 12‑month price target around $59 and a current dividend yield near 7.7%. ^[2] That makes MPLX one of the more watched high‑income names in the U.S. midstream universe.

Below is a structured look at the latest news, forecasts and analyses around MPLX as of December 6, 2025, written for readers who care about both the math and the story.

What MPLX LP Actually Does

MPLX is a master limited partnership (MLP) controlled by Marathon Petroleum (MPC). It owns and operates midstream energy infrastructure, including: ^[3]

Crude oil and refined product pipelines and terminals
Marine transportation assets
Storage caverns and refinery tanks
Natural gas and NGL gathering, processing and fractionation plants in key basins like the Permian and Marcellus/Utica

The business is organized into two main segments:

Crude Oil & Products Logistics (pipelines, terminals, marine)
Natural Gas & NGL Services (gathering, processing, fractionation)

Most of MPLX’s cash flow is fee‑based, under long‑term contracts, which is why income investors treat it like a toll road rather than a speculative oil producer. ^[4]

Stock Performance: Near Highs After a Big Multi‑Year Run

A quick snapshot of where the units stand right now:

Recent price: about $55.8–56.1 per unit (intraday and closing quotes across major data providers) ^[5]
52‑week range: roughly $44.60 – $56.26 ^[6]
1‑year return: around 14%, depending on data source and exact measurement date ^[7]

On December 1, 2025, MPLX printed a new 52‑week high around $54.87, with an estimated 22.7% year‑to‑date return and 13.7% gain over the past year, plus a dividend yield close to 7.9% at that point. ^[8]

Zooming out, Simply Wall St notes that as of early December 2025, MPLX has delivered roughly: ^[9]

+12.7% year‑to‑date
+19.4% over the last year
+121% over 3 years
+280% over 5 years

That’s a lot of compounding for an “income” vehicle.

On volatility, MPLX’s beta is about 0.5–0.6, meaning it usually swings less than the broader market. ^[10] Valuation is not extreme on simple metrics: most sources place the P/E around 11–12x, modest for a stable, high‑payout midstream business. ^[11]

Q3 2025 Results: Earnings Beat and a Bigger Payout

The most recent full quarter on the books is Q3 2025, reported on November 4, 2025. Headline numbers: ^[12]

Revenue: about $3.62 billion, up strongly from roughly $2.97 billion in Q3 2024
Net income: about $1.55 billion, versus $1.05 billion a year ago
Adjusted EBITDA: about $1.77 billion, up ~3% year‑over‑year
Distributable cash flow (DCF): around $1.47–1.5 billion, slightly higher than last year
Net cash from operations: about $1.43 billion

On a per‑unit basis, MPLX reported earnings of about $1.52, handily beating consensus estimates near $1.07–1.08. ^[13] That beat, plus strong revenue, helps explain why Zacks flagged MPLX as being up about 6.3% in the month following the report. ^[14]

Crucially for income investors:

MPLX declared a Q3 2025 distribution of $1.0765 per unit,
Coverage ratio: about 1.3x,
Leverage: roughly 3.7x debt to trailing‑12‑month adjusted EBITDA, up from 3.1x at the end of 2024 due to large acquisitions. ^[15]

A separate analysis from StockInvest notes that MPLX’s Q3 2025 adjusted EBITDA of about $1.8 billion is up ~3% year‑over‑year, year‑to‑date adjusted EBITDA is $5.2 billion (+4%), and the partnership returned around $1.1 billion to unitholders in the quarter (roughly $1 billion of distributions plus about $100 million of unit repurchases). ^[16]

Dividend Story: 7.7% Yield, Double‑Digit Growth

Here’s the part income investors usually check first.

Size of the payout

Current quarterly distribution:$1.0765 per unit
Annualized:$4.31 per unit
Forward yield: roughly 7.7–7.9%, depending on exact unit price snapshot ^[17]

The board raised the distribution by 12.5% for Q3 2025, the second consecutive year of 12.5% hikes. ^[18]

Dividend‑focused sites are understandably enthusiastic:

Dividend.com gives MPLX top‑tier grades for yield and stability, citing a ~7.7% forward yield, ~11% three‑year dividend CAGR and a beta near 0.5. ^[19]
StockAnalysis shows an annual dividend of $4.31 and a yield of 7.71%, with a payout ratio around 84% of earnings. ^[20]
MarketBeat cites a payout ratio above 90% on an EPS basis, which is high but not unusual for an MLP where DCF coverage, not EPS, is the key metric. ^[21]

From a cash‑flow perspective, the 1.3x coverage in Q3 is decent but tighter than the 1.5x coverage MPLX reported for full‑year 2024 before this year’s acquisition binge. ^[22] Management has explicitly said they expect mid‑single‑digit adjusted EBITDA growth and continued distribution increases supported by that growth. ^[23]

The short version: MPLX is deliberately running a “high‑yield, high‑payout” playbook, but still leaving some buffer between DCF and distributions.

2025 Strategy: $2 Billion Capex, Big Deals and a Data‑Center Angle

Capital plan

For 2025, MPLX has guided to about $2.0 billion of total capital spending, split roughly as: ^[24]

$1.45 billion – growth capital in Natural Gas & NGL Services
$250 million – growth capital in Crude Oil & Products Logistics
$300 million – maintenance capital

Management targets mid‑teens returns on these projects and expects them to support mid‑single‑digit EBITDA growth. ^[25]

Northwind Midstream acquisition (Permian sour gas)

In July 2025, MPLX struck a deal to acquire Northwind Midstream for about $2.38 billion in cash. The deal expands MPLX’s sour gas gathering and processing footprint in the Delaware portion of the Permian Basin. ^[26]

Key strategic points:

Adds hundreds of miles of pipelines and significant sour‑gas processing capacity
Backed by minimum volume commitments, which helps cash‑flow visibility
Expected to be immediately accretive to distributable cash flow once integrated, with sour gas capacity targeted to climb materially by 2026 ^[27]

$1 billion asset sale to Harvest Midstream

In August 2025, MPLX agreed to sell roughly $1 billion of natural gas gathering and processing assets in the Rockies (Wyoming, Utah, Colorado) to Harvest Midstream, owned by Jeff Hildebrand. ^[28] The package includes about 1,500 miles of pipelines and more than 800 million cubic feet per day of processing capacity.

Reuters notes that between Northwind and other deals, MPLX has done around $3.5 billion of acquisitions in 2025, largely focused on the Permian, and also joined joint‑venture partners in sanctioning the Eiger Express pipeline linking Permian gas to Gulf Coast export facilities. ^[29]

The pattern is clear: shed non‑core Rockies gas assets, and reinvest in higher‑growth, higher‑return Permian and Gulf Coast projects.

Gulf Coast NGL strategy and long‑haul projects

A February 2025 update laid out MPLX’s longer‑term Gulf Coast NGL vision: ^[30]

A new fractionation complex (two 150 kbpd units) near Marathon’s Galveston Bay refinery, expected online in 2028–2029
A 400 kbpd LPG export terminal and associated pipeline in partnership with ONEOK, also targeting 2028
Expansion of the BANGL NGL pipeline from 250 kbpd to 300 kbpd by the second half of 2026
Long‑haul gas pipelines like Blackcomb and Rio Bravo, moving Permian gas to Gulf Coast markets, expected in service in 2026
New gas processing capacity:
- Secretariat plant (200 mmcf/d) in the Permian, targeted for late 2025
- Harmon Creek III (300 mmcf/d + 40 kbpd de‑ethanizer) in the Northeast, expected in 2026

These projects are the backbone of the “mid‑single‑digit EBITDA growth + dividend growth” story that management keeps emphasizing. ^[31]

Data center collaboration with MARA

In November 2025, MPLX announced a letter of intent with MARA Holdings to supply natural gas to planned power generation and data center campuses in West Texas. The plan envisions: ^[32]

Initial 400 MW of gas‑fired power capacity
The potential to scale up to 1.5 GW
MPLX supplying gas from its Delaware Basin processing plants
MPLX receiving electricity under a tolling agreement, improving power reliability for its own operations

This is basically a “gas‑to‑compute” play: MPLX turns Permian gas into a stable, local demand source tied to data centers and (eventually) AI/HPC workloads.

How Rich (or Cheap) Is MPLX? Fresh Valuations and Forecasts

Wall Street targets and ratings

Different platforms compile slightly different analyst universes, but the picture is remarkably consistent:

MarketBeat (Dec 6, 2025):
- Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy”
- 9 analysts: mix of Buy and Hold
- Average 12‑month price target: around $59
- Implied upside: mid‑single digits from current levels, plus the 7–8% yield ^[33]
TipRanks:
- 8 analysts over the last 3 months
- Rating: Moderate Buy (5 Buy, 3 Hold, 0 Sell)
- Average target: $58.88
- Range: $55 – $64
- Implied upside: ~7.3% from a reference price near $54.85 ^[34]
MarketWatch / FactSet:
- Average recommendation: Overweight
- Average target price: $57.38 based on 16 ratings ^[35]
StockAnalysis / Finnhub data:
- Consensus rating: Buy
- Average price target: roughly $59 (low ~$55, high ~$62) ^[36]

The most notable new twist came on December 1, 2025, when JPMorgan downgraded MPLX from Overweight to Neutral, keeping a $57 price target. JPMorgan’s reasoning: the units have outperformed—up about 23% year‑to‑date versus the Alerian MLP index (~12%) and the Alerian Midstream index (~5%)—leaving less relative upside, even though they still like the underlying business and expect more distribution growth. ^[37]

So the analyst story, distilled:

“We like the asset, the yield, and the growth pipeline. We just don’t see huge capital gains from here after such a strong run.”

Earnings and revenue forecasts

Wall Street’s base‑case for 2025/2026, as compiled by StockAnalysis/Finnhub: ^[38]

2025 revenue: about $13.15 billion, up ~18% from 2024
2026 revenue: around $13.69 billion, up ~4%
2025 EPS: about $4.77, up ~13% from $4.21 in 2024
2026 EPS: slips a bit to $4.65 (‑2.5%), likely reflecting higher interest costs and the timing of new projects

That’s consistent with management’s own guidance of mid‑single‑digit EBITDA growth, but the Street is not modeling explosive earnings growth—more like “slow‑and‑steady plus high yield.”

Fundamental valuation: Simply Wall St vs. InvestingPro

Two widely read fundamental takes in the last few days pull in slightly different directions:

Simply Wall St (Dec 4, 2025):
- Gives MPLX a 5/6 valuation score
- DCF model estimates “intrinsic value” around $123 per unit, implying the units trade at roughly a 55% discount
- Notes MPLX trades at about 11.6x earnings, below the broader oil & gas industry (~13.6x) and well under a peer “fair ratio” near 20x, so they label it “undervalued” on both DCF and P/E grounds ^[39]
Investing.com / InvestingPro (Dec 1, 2025):
- Highlights the new 52‑week high at $54.87, a 22.7% YTD return, and roughly 7.9% dividend yield
- Notes MPLX trades at a P/E near 11.6 with a low beta around 0.55, but suggests the stock looks “slightly overvalued” and in overbought territory on technical indicators like RSI at that moment ^[40]

Those are two sides of the same coin:

Fundamental models: “Given these cash flows, MPLX could be worth a lot more than today’s price.”
Technical/relative models: “After a sharp run, the near‑term risk/reward is less obviously skewed to the upside.”

Narrative‑style analysis and blogs

Recent commentary from blogs and research outlets adds color:

A Motley Fool piece on December 5 framed MPLX as a stock quietly paying a “monster” ~7.9% yield, stressing that 2025’s roughly $3.5 billion in acquisitions have expanded the cash‑flow base beyond its Marathon sponsorship. ^[41]
Simply Wall St’s article explicitly asks whether investors are “late to the party” after a multi‑year rally, only to conclude that their models still see MPLX as meaningfully undervalued. ^[42]
Zacks flags MPLX’s post‑earnings momentum and earnings beat, but also reminds readers that midstream names can be sensitive to sector sentiment, not just firm‑specific cash flows. ^[43]

Risk Check: What Could Go Wrong?

Nothing in markets is pure yield magic. A few key risk levers to keep in mind:

Leverage and interest rates
- MPLX’s debt‑to‑EBITDA ratio climbed to about 3.7x in Q3 2025, up from 3.1x at the end of 2024, largely due to the Northwind acquisition and other investments. ^[44]
- Management says they’re comfortable up to around 4x, but in a world where rates may not go back to zero, highly leveraged, high‑payout vehicles are inherently more exposed.
Execution risk on big projects and M&A
- Northwind, Eiger Express, fractionation complexes, new processing plants—all of this requires permitting, construction, integration and commercial ramp‑up. Delays or cost overruns could crimp the expected mid‑teens returns. ^[45]
Commodity and volume risk
- MPLX is more toll‑road than wildcatter, but midstream volumes and recontracting still depend on drilling activity and long‑term hydrocarbon demand. If Permian or Marcellus growth disappoints, the growth story softens.
Regulatory and environmental risk
- Pipelines, NGL export terminals and gas plants live in a world of permits, environmental reviews and local opposition. The long‑dated nature of some Gulf Coast projects amplifies this risk. ^[46]
MLP structure and tax complexity
- MPLX issues K‑1 forms and has the usual MLP tax wrinkles (UBTI considerations in certain accounts, state filing issues, etc.). That’s not a disaster, but it does mean investors should understand the structure, not treat it as just “another dividend stock.”

Bottom Line: What 6 December 2025 Tells Us About MPLX

Putting all the current news, forecasts and analyses together:

Income appeal: MPLX offers a ~7.7–7.9% yield backed by largely fee‑based midstream cash flows, with double‑digit recent distribution growth and reasonably solid coverage. ^[47]
Growth pipeline: A $2 billion 2025 capex plan, the Northwind acquisition, Rockies asset rotation, and Gulf Coast NGL build‑out give a credible path to mid‑single‑digit EBITDA growth. ^[48]
Valuation:
- Street targets cluster around $57–59, implying modest price upside plus the high yield. ^[49]
- Fundamental shops like Simply Wall St see deep undervaluation on a DCF and P/E‑relative basis, while more technical takes like InvestingPro caution that the stock looks overbought after a strong run. ^[50]
Sentiment shift, not collapse: JPMorgan’s downgrade to Neutral is about relative upside after outperformance, not about an impending collapse in the business model. ^[51]

For investors who prize steady, high cash distributions, can tolerate MLP tax complexity, and accept the usual midstream project risks, MPLX remains, as of December 6, 2025, one of the more interesting “yield + moderate growth” stories in U.S. energy infrastructure. The real question is not whether MPLX’s pipes and plants will be busy—they almost certainly will—but how much of that future cash flow is already embedded in today’s mid‑50s unit price.