Refinery purchase still on track

Article Excerpt

CENOVUS ENERGY INC. $26 is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol CVE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $49.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; Dividend yield 1.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.cenovus.com) recently agreed to buy the 50% of a oil refinery in Toledo, Ohio, that it doesn’t already own. It will pay U.K.-based BP plc (New York symbol BP) $300 million U.S. for this facility, which supplies the U.S. Midwest with gasoline and diesel fuels. However, an explosion and fire has now shut down the Toledo refinery. Even so, Cenovus still plans to complete the transaction in the first quarter of 2023. Owning 100% of this facility will increase the company’s refining capacity by 80,000 barrels a day to a whopping 740,000 barrels. Its proximity to Cenovus’s other refinery in Lima, Ohio, should also let the company improve the efficiency of both operations. Cenovus is a buy. buy. …