Key Takeaways
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Chevron generated $18.1 billion of free cash flow in the second quarter of 2026, and TotalEnergies raised its interim dividend 5.9% to €0.90 a share in April.
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Both companies paid out 51% of their free cash flow as dividends over the twelve months to June 30, 2026.
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TotalEnergies yields 4.7% against Chevron’s 3.5%, while Chevron grew its dividend faster, at 5.8% a year from fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2025 against 4.9%.
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Both dividends were tighter in fiscal 2025, taking 77% of Chevron’s free cash flow and 73% of TotalEnergies’.
Chevron (CVX:NYSE) just showed what a strong quarter does for an oil major’s dividend math: $18.1 billion of free cash flow in the second quarter of 2026, up from $4.9 billion a year before.
Its European rival TotalEnergies (TTE) has been just as loud about its payout. In April, it raised its interim dividend 5.9% to €0.90 a share, putting priority on what Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné calls “the sacrosanct dividend.”
So if you’re buying one oil major for income, which is the better dividend stock?
Chevron: Hess is paying its way
Net production rose 20% in the second quarter of 2026, to 4.07 million barrels of oil equivalent a day from 3.40 million a year before. Hess and the Permian drove the increase. Chairman and CEO Michael Wirth says the Hess assets’ free cash flow “has been roughly double the incremental dividends and accretive to shareholders on a per share basis.”
Over the twelve months to June 30, 2026, Chevron’s $13.86 billion of dividends took a well-covered 51% of its $27.01 billion of free cash flow. It pays $1.78 a share each quarter and says it has “grown it for the 39th consecutive year.”
Fiscal 2025 was tighter, with dividends taking 77% of free cash flow. In fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2020, free cash flow fell short of the dividend.
…and Chevron kept raising it anyway.
Management hit its $3 billion run-rate cost savings target six months early. It also expects adjusted free cash flow to grow more than 10% a year on average through 2030, at flat commodity prices lower than today’s. The risk is the Middle East conflict, which has curtailed Chevron’s production in the Partitioned Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
TotalEnergies: same coverage, bigger check
TotalEnergies matches Chevron’s coverage exactly. Over the twelve months to June 30, 2026, its $8.94 billion of dividends took 51% of $17.42 billion of free cash flow.
It’s growing in LNG, integrated power and Namibia, and the Middle East has cut the other way. On the first-quarter call, Pouyanné said production shut down in Qatar, Iraq and offshore UAE made up about 15% of the company’s oil and gas output. By the July call, he put the impact nearer 8% to 9%.
