Cenovus Energy Inc. CVE is a leading Canadian integrated energy company with a diversified asset portfolio spanning oil sands, conventional oil and gas assets, offshore operations and refining facilities across Canada and the United States. CVE’s upstream operations generate the majority of its revenues by extracting crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas. The integrated giant’s downstream business generates revenues by refining these resources into petroleum products like gasoline and diesel.
Cenovus generates enough revenues to return capital to its shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. In the first quarter of 2026, CVE increased its quarterly base dividend by 10% to 22 cents per share, marking six consecutive years of dividend growth. During the same period, the company returned approximately $1.0 billion to its shareholders through dividends, share buybacks and preferred share redemptions. Since 2021, Cenovus has repurchased about 13% of its outstanding shares.
Cenovus plans to boost its future cash flows through several high-return growth projects. Key initiatives include the Christina Lake North expansion, the West White Rose offshore project, the Foster Creek optimization project and the Sunrise expansion. These projects are expected to boost production, cash flow and shareholder returns over the long term.
XOM & CVX Focus on Returning Capital to Its Shareholders
Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM and Chevron Corporation CVX are other integrated giants that generate enough revenues to return capital to their shareholders.
ExxonMobil distributed $9.2 billion to shareholders, including $4.3 billion in dividends and $4.9 billion through stock repurchases. This strong capital return program keeps XOM on pace with its plan to repurchase $20 billion of shares in 2026.
Chevron rewarded shareholders with a total of $27.1 billion through 2025, including $12.1 billion in share repurchases and $2.2 billion related to the acquisitions of Hess Corporation. This strong shareholder return program marked the company's 38th consecutive year of annual dividend increases. Continuing this trend into early 2026, CVX paid out $3.5 billion in common stock dividends and repurchased $2.5 billion worth of shares during the first quarter.
CVE’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Cenovus shares have gained 96.7% over the past year compared with 66.7% growth of the industry.
From a valuation standpoint, CVE trades at a trailing 12-month enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) of 7.03X. This is below the broader industry average of 7.21X.
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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CVE’s 2026 earnings has remained constant over the past seven days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
CVE currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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Chevron Corporation (CVX): Free Stock Analysis Report
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).