CENOVUS ENERGY $33.67 (Toronto symbolCVE; Shares outstanding: 754.9 million; Market cap:$25.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average;Dividend yield: 2.6%; www.cenovus.com) operatesthree heavy oil projects in Alberta and one inSaskatchewan. It gets about half of its output fromthe oil sands. Conventional oil and natural gas wellssupply the other half.
U.S.-based ConocoPhillips (New York symbolCOP) owns 50% of Cenovus’s main Foster Creekand Christina Lake oil sands projects in Alberta.Cenovus ships the heavy bitumen from these assets torefineries in Illinois and Texas that are also 50%owned by ConocoPhillips.
In the quarter ended September 30, 2012, Cenovus’scash flow per share rose 40.0%, to $1.47 from$1.05 a year earlier. The company continues toexpand its projects, and that pushed up its oil outputby 28.4%, to 171,350 barrels per day. It aims toboost production to 500,000 barrels a day by 2021.
Cenovus is a buy.