Updates on IMPERIAL OIL, BCE INC. and PENGROWTH ENERGY TRUST

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL $37.45 (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares outstanding: 847.6 million; Market cap: $31.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 1.2%; www.imperialoil.com) owns 70% of the massive Kearl oil-sands project in Alberta. Imperial’s parent company, ExxonMobil Corp. owns the remaining 30%. It will cost a total of $8 billion to bring Kearl into operation. Imperial’s share is $5.6 billion. Imperial has made some changes to this project. That will add to Kearl’s initial costs, but will raise its expected production by 5%. Meanwhile, Imperial’s earnings fell 23.6% in the three months ended September 30, 2010, to $418 million, or $0.49 a share. A year earlier, it earned $547 million, or $0.64 a share. Planned maintenance at Imperial’s oil-sands operations pushed down production by 7.0% in the latest quarter. That was the main reason for the earnings drop. Imperial Oil is a buy. BCE INC. $35.20 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 755.6 million; Market cap: $26.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.2%; www.bce.ca) provides…