Look beyond NDP win and weak prices

Article Excerpt

Imperial Oil and Suncor (see box) continue to expand their oil sands projects in the face of low oil prices. Alberta’s new NDP government could also increase royalties or impose new environmental regulations. However, these projects should last decades. As well, both Suncor and Imperial also operate refineries, which are seeing higher profits thanks to the oil-price drop. IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $49 (Toronto symbol IMO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios; Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 848.0 million; Market cap: $41.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 1.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.imperialoil.ca) produced an average of 333,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (93% oil and 7% natural gas) in the first quarter of 2015, up 0.9% from a year earlier. Excluding properties Imperial sold in the past year, production gained 5.7%. The increase is mainly due to rising output at the Kearl oil sands project in Alberta. Imperial owns 71% of Kearl; Exxon- Mobil (New York symbol XOM) holds the other 29%. Exxon also…