Refineries lift cash flow

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $95 is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol IMO; Conservative and Income Growth Portfolios, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 509.0 million; Market cap: $48.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.imperialoil.ca) gets over 90% of its production from oil sands operations in Alberta. Its other operations include three refineries (one in Alberta, two in Ontario) and a petrochemical plant in Sarnia, Ontario. U.S.-based ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM) owns 69.6% of Imperial. The company produced an average 418,000 barrels of oil equivalent in the three months ended March 31, 2025, down 0.7% from 421,000 a year earlier. The decline reflects extreme cold weather and unplanned downtime at its Kearl oil sands property. However, thanks to higher sales of refined oil products, revenue in the quarter rose 1.9%, to $12.52 billion from $12.28 billion. Higher earnings at its refineries also lifted Imperial’s overall cash flow in the quarter by 15.7%, to $1.76 billion from $1.52 billion. Due to fewer shares…