Stifel Canada on Wednesday reiterated its buy rating on the shares of Cenovus Energy (CVE.TO, CVE) with a C$42.00 price target following the oil producer and refiner's first-quarter results.

"CVE printed Q1 beats across the board, owing ~evenly to both Upstream and Downstream, which alongside the capex beat drove better-than-expected FCF. AFFO came in ~16% better vs. expectations (C$3.38B vs. TPHe/Street C$2.92B; C$1.80 on a per share basis vs. TPHe/Street C$1.54), which net of better capex (C$1.17B vs. TPHe/Street C$1.27B) resulted in the FCF beat (C$2.21B vs. TPHe/Street C$1.65B). At the segment level, Downstream slightly led the beat (~55% vs. TPHe) despite throughput coming in a touch light vs. expectations at 459mboepd combined vs. TPHe/Street 464/460, with the C$0.46B inventory holding gain the main driver vs. our model; C$0.73B op. margin vs. TPHe/Street C$0.45B/C$0.43B. Within Upstream, ops solidly beat with 972mboepd total production better vs. TPHe/Street 962/963; C$3.71B op. margin vs. TPHe/Street C$3.34B. From a shareholder returns perspective including preferreds, CVE returned C$1.04B during the quarter (~C$365MM buybacks, ~C$379MM dividends, ~C$300MM preferred redemptions), and the quarterly dividend was increased by 10% to C$0.22/shr.," analyst Jeoffrey Lambujon wrote.

(MT Newswires covers equity, commodity and economic research from major banks and research firms in North America, Asia and Europe. Research providers may contact us here: https://www.mtnewswires.com/contact-us)

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