Buffett Leaps on Oxy
With share prices up almost 90% in the last 12 months, Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is proving itself a comeback kid after a near fatal choke back in 2019 from the $55 billion acquisition of Anadarko.
Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest news from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway which—within one week—has forked over a total $6 billion for 118.3 million shares of Oxy.
The Buffett-Occidental relationship is well worth revisiting. The struggles that followed Oxy’s Goliath-size purchase of Anadarko and the debt load it created gobsmacked Wall Street. To ensure the deal got done, Buffett paid $10 billion for 84 million shares of Occidental. But in short order, life for Oxy turned hairy-scary. COVID struck, crude prices tanked, intended sales of international assets to reduce debt went up in flames, and multi-billion-dollar quarterly losses in 2020 threatened to write a teary-eyed ending. But a change she was a-coming.
The company’s longtime prowess using carbon injection for enhanced oil recovery set into motion the development of new technologies to capture and sequester CO2 emissions around the world. And the Oracle of Omaha is leaping on it.