Cenovus ups its spending

Article Excerpt

CENOVUS ENERGY, $24.43, is a buy for long-term gains. The company (Toronto symbol CVE; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $46.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 1.9%; www.cenovus.com) is now Canada’s third-largest producer of oil and natural gas, and the country’s second-largest refiner. Cenovus plans to spend between $4.0 billion and $4.5 billion on exploration and upgrades in 2023. That’s up from its likely 2022 spending of about $3.5 billion. The extra spending should increase Cenovus’s production by roughly 3% in 2023, to between 800,000 and 840,000 barrels a day. The company’s oil sands will account for 75% of that total, followed by conventional oil and gas properties (16%) and offshore projects (9%). Thanks to higher oil prices and improving cash flow, Cenovus expected to have cut its net debt (total debt less cash), from $13.1 billion after the Husky Energy acquisition in January 2021, to $4.0 billion by the end of 2022. Cenovus is a buy. buy…