IMO can live with this risk

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $46 (Toronto symbol IMO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Shares outstanding: 847.6 million; Market cap: $39.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.imperialoil.ca) is Canada’s second-largest publicly traded oil company, after Suncor Energy. It’s also a 69.6%-owned subsidiary of U.S.-based ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM). The U.S. and Canadian governments recently decided to limit any new offshore drilling for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea, just north of Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Ottawa’s decision has no effect on existing permits, including some held by Imperial. The government will also let oil companies upgrade their licenses in the event of a discovery. Without new discoveries, Ottawa will refuse to renew drilling permits. They will expire between 2019 and 2023. Even with the possibility of a writedown, the impact on Imperial’s earnings would be small. Imperial Oil is a buy. buy…