Suncor Energy Inc T.SU

The Chess Game Continues

[Experienced]

Putin's invasion of The Ukraine so far has not been full throated.  The popular press narrative is that the Russian are being held back by the Ukrainian military.  The Russians send some missles into Kviv at night and then do nothing the rest of the day.  I very much doubt that this restraint is due to the Russians being held back by the Ukrainians.

In another channel, the Ukrainians and the Russians are negotiating a location to have peace talks with the Ukrainians rejecting an offer from the Russians to meet in Minsk and suggesting Israel.

While this is going on, The West has imposed a bunch of toothless sanctions on Russia and making a lot of noise in their media that they are stangling Russia with these sanctions while anybody who really knows international business knows that it is just that - noise.

So what is really going on?

Putin knows that even if he were to take the Ukrainian capital and install a puppet President that the Ukrainian people and the military would still fight the Russians which is an intenable position for the Russians and one that they would inevitably lose after a costly and lengthy guerrila war.

The Ukrainian President despite his bravado doesn't want to die nor does he want to have the blood of thousands of Ukrainians on his hands and see the physical destruction of his country and its beautiful cities.

All Russia really wants is a neutral Ukraine and a country where Russia has some influence and also security for the Russian Ukrainians.

So Putin is trying to do just enough militarily to get Ukraine to declare that it will not seek NATO membership.

If these peace talks go forward the only real thing that the Ukrainians can offer is a commitment to put their aspirations for NATO off the table in return for a withdrawal of Russian forces from the country and for Russia to leave them alone.

If this were to happen, how would the market react?

I see from my experience a couple of things.  First the market will pop, celebrating the peace deal.  Second oil prices will go down.

Let's deal with the first one.

As I have mentioned before, nothing going on in terms of the invasion or the 'sanctions" for that matter have any real effect on the world economy and particularly The West.  So if the market does "celebrate" a peace deal it is nothing more than a sucker punch to get the lemmings to buy in while the trading floors on Wall Street happily sell into this false narrative.  Smart investors will use this opportunity to mimic these trading floors and seal in some profits before the market "realizes" that peace in the Ukraine has no impact on the profitability of US companies.

Now - the second one

I see resolution of the Ukrainian situation to have a more lasting impact on oil prices in a downward direction.  The  invasion by Russia has highlighted the vulnerability of The West to have effective tools to non militarily push against future agression by Russia and China.  This will likely result in a change in the world energy market and lead to more production and international transport of natural gas, at the expense of oil.  If I am right about this then this is not good news for holders of oil production companies.

[firstworld]

LOL have a bunch of poorly educated and minimal experience people and politicians who couldn't even get jobs in private sector aside from lobbying against a master team of tactical and strategic folks backed with nearly $1TN in case reserves, best friends with China, and by far the most sucessful military in last 20 years. Canada is a comedy. A school teacher behaving like Adolf, backed with a

[NPCexe]

Don't forget Iran is looking over a final draft of the proposal. Deal is imminent but everyone is focused on Russia. Might catch market by surprise and further drop the oil price. I sold some SU and ENB on Friday for some peace of mind. Not liking this uncertainty. Nobody predicted any of this yet the oil stocks have given us a chance to pop smoke if we needed to.

[Experienced]

Yes agree about Iran.  If that deal is inked then we can expect an additional and immediate increase in world oil supply of 1-1.5 million barrels a day.  I would expect that part of the cash in the deal will not only fund the Iranian nuclear program but also fund additional oil production in Iran which is literally sitting on hundreds of years of conventional proven oil reserves. As for

[Obscure1]

Fantome:  I'm a big fan of your writing as you freely share your considerable intelligence and experience. However, I respectfully disagree with your thought process in regards to the direction of oil prices in the short to medium term other than the liklihood of Wall St. playing its typical games.  While the demand for oil and gas continues to rise, where is the supply going to

[Wynjoe]

Great points Obscure,I agree..This whole world has put pressure on financial institutions NOT to invest in new oil ventures and with Suncors reserves and additional interests that could be "fairly"quickly put into play,Suncor is a great place to be.BUY SUNCOR....

[Experienced]

Thanks for your kind words.  I for one enjoy reading your posts. I hope for your sake and other SU longs that you are right. For now world oil demand is at about the same level that it was four years ago and EIA is predicting a surplus of oil production over demand requirements for the next two years.  If they are right then the price of oil will fall.  Further as I have posted in

[Re1ndeer2]

I see Russian Oil will be deemed "Blood Oil" and black listed while Putin is  in control of the Kremlin....This was a big miscalculation......

[autofocus111]

Ex I agree, with the caveat that even in the event 'peace' is reached fossil energy prices will remain high for many months. Energy production policies and more importantly the lack of investment in new production over the last several years practially assures supplies will remain constrained. The only thing that would cause prices to tank short-term is lower demand from a global

[Experienced]

Current forecasts are for US production to rise this and next year despite what Biden is doing.  This forecasted increase is largely due to the high oil prices. The last forecast I saw recently was for US production to rise by about 700K/day to 12 million per day and a further increase next year to 12.6 million per day. In terms of an earlier comment about ENB, most of this production

[autofocus111]

Oil is a global commodity. Growth in NA production is likely, but ROW matters. Shale assets can be switched on in relatively short order, but offshore is another story altogether. Unless demand growth stalls, I think we'll continue to see a tight market for at least a year or two.