Topic: How To Invest

Dividend Advisor Hotline – Friday, January 5, 2024

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD., $78.60, Toronto symbol IMO, is a buy. The company gets over 90% of its production from oil sands operations in Alberta. Imperial also has conventional oil and natural gas operations in the West and holds stakes in offshore projects in Atlantic Canada. Its other operations include three refineries (one in Alberta, two in Ontario) and a petrochemical plant in Sarnia, Ontario. With the July 2023 payment, the company raised your quarterly dividend by 13.6%, to $0.50 a share from $0.44. The new annual rate of $2.00 yields 2.5%. Imperial now plans to spend $1.7 billion on capital upgrades and exploration in 2024, roughly equal to what it likely spent in 2023. Part of that spending will go to a “renewable” diesel fuel complex at Imperial’s Strathcona refinery near Edmonton. Renewable diesel is a biofuel produced from wood, crops and vegetable oils. The Strathcona project will cost $720 million, and should produce 20,000 barrels a day of renewable diesel when it begins operating in…