Imperial ups its spending

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD., $46.58, is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares o/s: 695.6 million; Market cap: $32.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 2.3%; www.imperialoil.ca) is Canada’s third-largest publicly traded oil company after Canadian Natural Resources (No. 1) and Suncor. U.S.-based ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM) owns 69.6% of the company. Thanks to an improved outlook for oil prices, the company plans to invest $1.4 billion in exploration and upgrades to its existing operations in 2022. That’s up roughly 27% from the likely 2021 spending of $1.1 billion. Imperial expects to produce an average of 425,000 to 440,000 barrels a day in 2022. The midpoint of that range—432,500—is about 4% higher than its projected 2021 production of 415,000 barrels a day. It also expects its refineries will process 7% more crude oil in 2022. These improvements should lift Imperial’s projected free cash flow (regular cash flow less maintenance capital expenditures) from $4.3 billion in 2021 to $6.0 billion in 2022. Imperial Oil is a buy…