Post by
mrmomo on Mar 01, 2023 7:25am
My 2cents on Baytex's actions
Before i say anything on the matter, i just want to disclose that i'm NOT a current s/h and haven't been one for some time. But i've held the stock for short periods of time on several occassions over the past 20 years. So i'm no stranger to the company or its operations and i know them quite well. Secondly, my general opinion of Baytex over that time period has been usually neutral & always considered them to be middle of the pack. Meaning not really the best or one of the top O&G operators in either the Canadian oil patch or the American venue, but also not worst or bottom of the barrel either. They're really somewhere in the middle and i think that assessment is the consensus among knowledgeable investors in this sector.
With that said, even though i don't really agree with their current actions & decisions, i understand WHY they chose that path. I get it. But that doesn't mean i totally agree with it. What's happened here recently with this acquisition, really doesn't affect someone like me becasue as i've stated, i'm not a current s/h and have NO vested interest in the company or where they decide to go. But for someone who is a shareholder and has intentions to STAY a long term s/h, then my friends, this has EVERYTHING to do with you and should pay careful attention to what has been done here and the decisions that Baytex mgmt has undertaken including the eventual fallout.
To start off, i think folks should understand & realize WHY Baytex made this decision and gone ahead with the Ranger Oil acquisition. WHY did Baytex do this? Was there no other viable path or option? To begin to understand this decision, i think investors really need to grasp all the macro factors & triggers that led Baytex mgmt to actually consider something like this. And for this, you need to wind back the clock a little and go back a few years, when everything changed for the industry, especially on the Canadian side. As you all know by now, there's been a hard push over the last decade from the majority of Western democracies to transition to GREEN energy & completely distance themselves from anything relating to fossil fuels. This is all due because of the misconception & deep, long term programming of Western populations with regards to Climate Chabge & the environment. There is no stopping this trajectory or its implications & consequences. I could go on long rant why this is the case, especially the dirty politics of it, but this is neither the time or place to do it, so you folks only need to understand that the stage has been set and there's no way we're going back to as things were before.
So with this being said, and hopefully understood by you good folks, we then fall to the difficult position & dismal state that Canada's faltering O&G industry has been push into. They've been forcibly backed into a dark, isolated corner with no way out & forced to stay there until they just fade away to nothing, is the best way i can describe this unfortunate situation. The hard push for Climate Change, ESG mandates and anything negatively affecting the environment, has been all rolled into one single target and is being harshly dealth with, O&G operators along with it. A certain agneda & mentality in which i don't agree at all and for which we will pay a hefty price in the next few years that follow. Canada has always been a very progressive, left leaning country and they've been strongly trending more that way over the past decades. More so since Trudeau & his cronies came into office with their crazy leftist, socialist agendas. But i hope people understand that Canada was on this path even long before Trudeau & his motely crew of sea Pirates came onboard. Just think of Canada as larger version of California/NYC with the same attitude & agendas but with much less people & crazies. The arrival of that wanker Trudeau with his insane policies & agendas just accelerated that path Canada was already on.
I know this a long commentary and hope you guys are following just fine up to this point, because this is where things get interesting. So with the stage being set and for Canadian O&G operators having nowhere to run, the destruction/dismantling started to happen. With Trumole & crew pushing & forcing his nutty energy policies upon these poor companies & the rest ofthe population, the isolation was starting to wreak havoc on the Canadian O&G industry. Folks also have to remember that a lot of the damage also came from South of the border. There was a time when the majority of Americans actually appreciated the services/products that these Canadian producers were shipping over, as in a mutually beneficial partnership where everyone wins. And American industry & their enormous powerhouse financial abilities reacting in kind by infusing billions of investment dollars over the past 40 years in the Canadian oil patch. But that's no more, all gone and never to return again, as American investors fled this booming sector in droves, as they were reprogrammed to hate & reject it, as well as being coherced and frightened by severe repercusionsif they didn't distance themselves away from ANYTHING fossil fuel related.
Enter Encana. Or better put, the beginning of the end for companies like Encana, who was renamed btw to a gender nuetral, a non threatning name like Ovintiv. Only women can come up with names like that lol. That's for sure! But say what you want about Ovintiv and their mgmt, but they saw the signs years ago & reacted quickly. They KNEW what had to be done in order to reatin some viable level of investor interest and hopfully survive this new paradigm. As is the case with Baytex, most of Ovintiv's interests, being managment, assets & the main base of their shareholders, were/are vastly American. So having recognized this hard fact and seeing what was occuring in real time both in politics and energy policies within the new Canadian sphere, Ovintiv's mgmt decided the best course of action for the company and the majority of its s/h was to redomocile to the US, and focusing all resources & energies on growing future operations there. I think it was one of the most shrewed, boldest & smart moves ANY Canadian company has EVER made, EVER. Many folks criticized them for it and they took a lot of flack from many Canadian institutions BUT it was strongest and best decision they ever did and it has paid off in spades since.
Exit Ovintiv.......Enter Baytex
As this is a LONG commentary, this is part one to set the stage for you and will post part II to conclude later in the week.....
GLTA