RE:Con/Philip's dealThe Conoco deal was an exspensive one, by today's standard it looks even worse.
Long term Cenovus has great potential. The oil sands asset is premium quality. Industry best SOR's, and multi decade long life reserves.
The company paid off 22% of it's debt last year, in a challenging environment. Debt levels are no longer as big an issue in my opinion.
As you say once the Conoco overhang is gone, and the egress situation improves. In an environment with oil prices over $50 Cenovus will be making big time money. Once they get the debt level down to 5 billion, some of that extra money can be directed into dividends or stock buy back.
Cenovus is big enough to survive this down cycle. When the next up cycle occurs Cenovus should be able to capitalize. Cheers Matthew