By Steve Gelsi
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Murphy Oil Corp. MUR +0.51% shares jumped 7% in premarket trades Tuesday after it said it'll spin off to its shareholders its U.S. refining and marketing unit, Murphy Oil USA, into an independent, publicly-traded company. Murphy also plans to pay a special dividend of $2.50 a share and buy back $1 billion in stock. Murphy said it's still working to divest its U.K. downstream operations and it's continuing to review options with respect to "selected assets." Murphy will become an independent exploration and production company with operations focused on the U.S., Canada and Malaysia.
