Updating Imperial Oil Ltd.

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $40 (Toronto symbol IMO; Cyclical-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio; Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 840.4 million; Market cap: $33.6 billion; Dividend yield: 1.6%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.imperialoil. ca) is Canada’s second-largest integrated oil company, after Suncor Energy. U.S.-based ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM) owns 69.6% of Imperial. With the July 2017 payment, the company raised its quarterly dividend by 6.7%. Investors now receive $0.16 a share instead of $0.15. The new annual rate of $0.64 yields 1.6%. Imperial has increased the annual rate each year for the pat 22 years. In the quarter ended June 30, 2017, overall revenue rose 12.6% to $7.0 billion from $6.2 billion a year earlier. That gain is mainly because crude oil prices jumped 43.2% to $51.62 a barrel compared to the year-earlier quarter. Imperial produced an average of 331,000 barrels a day in the quarter, up 0.6% from 329,000 barrels a year earlier. Higher output at its oil sands projects offset lower production at…