Sable Offshore (NYSE:SOC) and Viper Energy (NASDAQ:VNOM) Critical Comparison

Sable Offshore (NYSE:SOC) and Viper Energy (NASDAQ:VNOM) are both mid-cap oils/energy companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Sable Offshore and Viper Energy, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sable Offshore	1	0	4	0	2.60
Viper Energy	0	0	12	0	3.00

Sable Offshore presently has a consensus target price of $26.25, indicating a potential upside of 1.42%. Viper Energy has a consensus target price of $59.00, indicating a potential upside of 30.53%. Given Viper Energy’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Viper Energy is more favorable than Sable Offshore.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

26.2% of Sable Offshore shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 87.7% of Viper Energy shares are held by institutional investors. 14.3% of Sable Offshore shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Viper Energy shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Sable Offshore has a beta of 0.32, indicating that its stock price is 68% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Viper Energy has a beta of 1.69, indicating that its stock price is 69% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Sable Offshore and Viper Energy’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sable Offshore	N/A	-319.58%	-39.11%
Viper Energy	24.65%	6.72%	4.98%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Sable Offshore and Viper Energy”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sable Offshore	N/A	N/A	-$32.18 million	N/A	N/A
Viper Energy	$859.75 million	11.20	$200.09 million	$3.67	12.32

Viper Energy has higher revenue and earnings than Sable Offshore.

Summary

Viper Energy beats Sable Offshore on 10 of the 11 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sable Offshore

Sable Offshore Corp. engages in the oil and gas exploration and development activities in the United States. The company operates through three platforms located in federal waters offshore California. It owns and operates 16 federal leases across approximately 76,000 acres and subsea pipelines, which transport crude oil, natural gas, and produced water from the platforms to the onshore processing facilities. The company was formerly known as Flame Acquisition Corp. and changed its name to Sable Offshore Corp. in February 2024. Sable Offshore Corp. was incorporated in 2020 and is based in Houston, Texas.

About Viper Energy

Viper Energy, Inc. engages in the acquisition of oil and natural gas properties. It owns, acquires, and exploits oil and natural gas properties in North America. The company was founded on February 27, 2014 and is headquartered in Midland, TX.