CENOVUS ENERGY $30.90 - Toronto symbol CVE

CENOVUS ENERGY $30.90 (Toronto symbol CVE; Shares outstanding: 755.0 million; Market cap: $23.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 3.1%; www.cenovus.com) has three heavy oil projects in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan. The oil sands supply about half of its output. The other half is conventional oil and gas.

U.S.-based ConocoPhillips (New York symbol COP) owns 50% of Cenovus’s main Foster Creek and Christina Lake oil sands projects. Cenovus ships the heavy bitumen from these assets to refineries in Illinois and Texas, which are also 50% owned by ConocoPhillips.

In the quarter ended December 31, 2012, cash flow per share fell 17.8%, to $0.92 from $1.12 a year earlier. Expansion pushed up oil output by 23.1%, to 177,646 barrels a day from 144,273, but that was offset by lower prices. Cenovus aims to boost its production to 500,000 barrels a day by 2021.

Cenovus is a buy.

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