Crude oil price volatility has had energy and gas stocks like Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO) bouncing up and down. Many investors to take a wait-and-see approach to the crude oil sector. But while conventional wisdom says it’s safer to wait out the peaks and valleys, those who wait too long could end up leaving money on the table.

Politics, production and broader economic factors will always give oil and gas stocks a wild ride, but solid names with strong fundamentals and healthy market position will still deliver value to investors.

Take Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), for example. The company operates in four segments: exploration and production; oil sands mining; refining, transportation, and marketing; and integrated natural gas operations. Those integrated operations have enabled Marathon to benefit from the widening “crack spread” (the profit margin that exists between the price of crude oil and the refined products like gasoline that are derived from it).

This helped the company post first-quarter earnings of nearly $1.2 billion – a 276% increase over the same quarter in 2010. And Marathon has more in the tank than just strong quarterly earnings. The stock has risen 52% above its 52-week low of $30.04 last August and is trading above both its 50-day moving average of $51.74 and its 200-day moving average of $46.57.

But the numbers don’t tell the whole story of Marathon Oil’s value proposition. Here are three reasons this energy stock has what it takes to go the distance:

1. Downstream Unit Spin-off. Marathon Oil’s formal spin-off of its downstream business into a separate, independent company later this month will be a boon for shareholders. The new company, Marathon Petroleum (MPC), reportedly will become the nation’s fifth-largest refinery. Under the new structure, Marathon Oil will focus on global exploration and production. Here’s what investors get from the spin-off: current Marathon shareholders will receive one share of MPC for every two MRO shares they own.
2. Eagle Ford Shale Deal. Last month, MRO inked a $3.5 billion deal with Hilcorp Resources to acquire the latter’s Eagle Ford Shale assets in south Texas. This is one of the most promising oil and gas exploration plays in the U.S. because the oil play alone represents as much as 6 million acres of potential development, and drilling could go on for decades. A recent study by the University of Texas at San Antonio estimated that by 2020, Eagle Ford could account for 5,000 new wells and more than $21 million in new development. And the natural gas play is pretty significant, too.
3. Improving Refinery Margins. The fortunes of refinery operations, which had been lagging during the recession, are bouncing back. Because the “crack spread” has been growing, those operations are now more profitable.  MRO – and more importantly the new MPC –will benefit substantially from these trends.

As of this writing, Susan J. Aluise did not hold a position in any of the stocks mentioned here.