Key updates on your safety-conscious stocks

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IMPERIAL OIL LTD., $70.33, is a buy. The company (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares o/s: 584.2 million; Market cap: $42.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 2.5%; 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. Imperial has decided to proceed with a planned “renewable” diesel fuel complex at its Strathcona refinery near Edmonton. Renewable diesel is a biofuel produced from wood, crops and vegetable oils. The new facility will produce 20,000 barrels a day of renewable diesel when it begins operating in 2025. Imperial will spend $720 million on this facility. Some of those costs are included in the company’s previously announced plan to spend $1.7 billion on capital upgrades and exploration in 2023. To put that amount in context, Imperial’s market cap (the total value of all outstanding shares) is $42.5 billion. The Strathcona plant will help Imperial with its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions from its…