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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) disclosed it purchased an additional 9.9 million Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) shares last week as the billionaire continued to add his position in the oil company.
Buffett purchased the 9.9M shares for about $584 million at average price of $58.98 from Wednesday through Friday and now owns a total of 163.4 million shares, giving Berkshire a stake of 17.4%, according to a Form 4 filing. Berkshire paid in the range of $57 to $60 a share.
The latest disclosure comes after Berkshire Hathaway disclosed in a regulator filing on Monday that it had bought an additional $44M worth of shares in the company.
Berkshire (BRK.A) (BRK.B) is Occidental’s (OXY) largest individual shareholder with ~163.4 shares worth more about $9.9- billion\, based on OXY’s Friday close at $60.44, with options to buy another 83.9M shares that would bring its stake to more than 25%.
Truist analyst Neal Dingmann last month said there’s a “good chance” Buffett eventually will buy the whole company when it achieves investment-grade status and he raised his price target to $93.
In the first quarter, Berkshire (BRK.A) purchased ~$7.0b worth of the Occidental. Buffett noted at the Berkshire annual meeting in early May that he was able to buy 14% of the petroleum refiner over only a two-week period.
Buffett offered few insights into oil markets (USO) at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual gathering in May, rather indicating that he’d read a report on Occidental (OXY) over a weekend and felt the CEO was simply running the company well.
Berkshire’s Buffett first disclosed a more than $5 billion stake in Occidental (OXY) back in March.
Buffett’s bet on Occidental (OXY) may continue to pay off as global oil prices could climb to a climb to a “stratospheric” $380/bbl the G7 nations succeed in imposing caps on the price of Russian oil and prompt Vladimir Putin to inflict retaliatory production cuts, J.P. Morgan Chase analysts warned this week.
