Kearl halt is just temporary

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL $53.20 (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares outstanding: 847.6 million; Market cap: $43.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Div. yield: 1.0%; www.imperialoil.ca) has suspended production at its Kearl oil sands project in northern Alberta due to problems with a machine that separates bitumen (heavy oil) from sand. Kearl produced 92,000 barrels a day in the third quarter of 2014, or 30% of Imperial’s total daily output of 307,000 barrels. Kearl’s second phase will add another 78,100 barrels per day to Imperial’s output in 2015. The company expects to complete the repairs at Kearl in the next few weeks. Due to the recent drop in oil prices, the outage will have only a small impact on Imperial’s fourth-quarter earnings. Imperial Oil is a buy. buy. …