Andrew Bary

Occidental Petroleum stock is back in Warren Buffett's wheelhouse.

The question now is whether Berkshire Hathaway will resume buying the stock after Occidental fell 4.6% Friday to $46.65.

That's its lowest closing price since mid-December, when Berkshire snapped up 8.9 million Occidental shares at an average price of about $46 after a dip in the stock. It soon recovered to above $50.

Occidental stock finished Friday just above its 52-week low of $45.17 set on Dec. 19, when Berkshire bought shares and bottom-ticked the stock.

Berkshire now owns 264 million shares worth about $12 billion, a 28% stake in the big U.S.-focused energy company. Occidental and Chevron are Berkshire's two big energy equity investments.

Investors should know in a few days whether Berkshire was buying since it must report purchases within two business days as a holder of more than 10% of Occidental.

Berkshire CEO Buffett, who oversees Berkshire's $300 billion equity portfolio, has been very selective about new Occidental purchases since the spring of 2024. Berkshire's last purchase prior to December was in June 2024.

Buffett said at the 2023 Berkshire annual meeting that he wasn't interested in owning all of Occidental and he is a fan of the company's CEO, Vicki Hollub. Some Berkshire and Occidental investors still hold out hope that Berkshire will offer to buy the rest of the company.

The Occidental investment has been a loser for Berkshire with Barron's estimating it has paid an average of about $53 a share since it began buying in 2022. That would mean a paper loss of about $1.5 billion.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

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January 31, 2025 17:30 ET (22:30 GMT)

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