Imperial focuses on costs

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL $38.67 (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares outstanding: 837.6 million; Market cap: $31.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 1.7%; www.imperialoil.ca) is Canada’s second-largest publicly traded oil company, after Suncor. ExxonMobil (New York symbol OM) owns 69.6% of Imperial. Over the next two years, the company plans to spend $550 million to expand its Kearl oil sands project in northern Alberta. While Imperial owns 71% of Kearl, Exxon-Mobil owns the remaining 29%. The expansion should increase Kearl’s gross production capacity to 240,000 barrels a day from 180,000. The project should also improve Kearl’s efficiency and cut operating costs for this production site to $20 U.S. per barrel from $24 U.S. Meanwhile, Imperial continues to study the possible use of driverless trucks to further improve efficiency and reduce costs for Kearl and its other operations. Each automomous truck would represent the elimination of five of the company’s driver positions. Imperial Oil is a buy. buy…