If you believe as I do that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goals in igniting the current conflict in Ukraine was to attempt to use Europe’s dependency on Russia natural gas to drive a wedge among NATO members, the most recent developments make a great deal of sense. And we look like we’re on the road to a major escalation of the conflict in the Ukraine.
The Independent Commodity Intelligence Services published its supply/demand outlook for liquified natural gas today, Monday, February 7. The conclusion: Higher supply deficits for 2022 despite the addition of 24 million tons of LNG capacity in 2021. ICIS projects that supplies will increase by just 5.3 million tons in 2022. Demand is forecast to increase by 13.8 million tons.
U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate rose above $90 a barrel–it closed at $90.87, up 0.60% for the day, for the first time since 2014. International benchmark Brent crude gained 0.42% to close at $91.53 a barrel. Of course, it took a wild confluence of events to push prices above $90.
OPEC+ meets tomorrow and the oil cartel and friends like Russia is expected to approve an increase in production that will reduce last year’s cuts in production. But the odds are that the decision won’t matter.
On Saturday, January 15, in my “Saturday Night Quarterback” post wrote that conflict (a more comprehensive term than “war) between Russia and Ukraine remained a low probability event–but that the probability wasn’t zero and the the odds of conflict had increased in the past month. What’s happened since then? The odds of conflict have climbed
In the week ahead expect the financial markets to pay more attention to the crisis unfolding in Ukraine. War between Russian and Ukrainian forces on Ukrainian soil remains a low probability event in my opinion but it odds aren’t nearly as low as they were a month ago.
I’m using the rise of oil prices to near $70 a barrel on optimism about a post-pandemic increase in oil prices to sell Equinor (EQNR) out of my Millennial Portfolio.
Oil prices have bounced back big time and with them the prices on oil stocks. I still think the long-term trend is against oil producers as efforts to combat global warming lead to lower consumption of fossil fuels. And I’d prefer not to own any oil and natural gas shares–even in as “progressive” a company as Equinor. I’m going to take advantage of the rally in oil prices to sell these shares out of my Jubak Picks Portfolio with a small 0.9% gain since I established that position in May 2012.
