Imperial cancels gas projects

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $36 (Toronto symbol IMO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Shares outstanding: 831.2 million; Market cap: $29.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Divd. yield: 1.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.imperialoil. ca) is Canada’s third-largest publicly traded oil company, after Suncor (No. 1) and Canadian Natural Resources. U.S.-based ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM) owns 69.6% of Imperial. Due to the lack of terminals available to export liquefied natural gas from B.C. to Asia, Imperial has decided to cancel plans for its Horn River natural gas development in northeastern B.C. The company has also cancelled its Mackenzie gas pipeline project. It would have pumped gas from the Beaufort Sea to Alberta. In all, Imperial wrote off $566 million in development and related costs. As a result, it lost $137 million, or $0.16 a share, in the three months ended December 31, 2017. A year earlier, it earned $1.4 billion, or $1.70. Revenue in the quarter declined 4.3%, to $8.1 billion from $8.4 billion. Lower volumes…