ConocoPhillips beat estimates as rising commodity prices led America’s biggest independent oil producer to the highest profit in nearly three years.

Conoco on Tuesday posted adjusted earnings of $1.27 a share in the second quarter, compared with the $1.13 estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts. The stock rose 2.3% in New York.

U.S. energy companies are using buybacks and dividends to attract investors to the sector after years of poor performance left it making up just 2.6% of the S&P 500, down from more than 12% a decade ago. Conoco became one of the first large energy companies to increase shareholder returns in response to high commodity prices when it lifted its share buyback by two-thirds to $2.5 billion a year in June.

As such there was little expectation the company would further increase cash returns.

This “is a defining moment for the sector,” Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance said in the statement. “ConocoPhillips uniquely meets this moment with a credible multiyear plan, continued strong execution.”

Lance has been lowering capital spending and slowing production growth as part of a pledge to reinvest only half of its cash flow in new drilling and return the rest to shareholders. The promise underscores how U.S. oil producers are maintaining production discipline.

A key question is what Conoco executives plan to do with the company’s cash pile worth about $7 billion. The company is said to be among several suitors for Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Permian Basin assets, worth as much as $10 billion, people familiar with the matter said last month. The U.S. shale patch has become a hotbed of merger activity this year, and Conoco secured the biggest deal to date with the $13 billion stock purchase of Concho Resources Inc.