Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Corp. (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) and its subsidiaries boosted their stake in red-hot Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) by another $1.5B billion over the past week just as oil prices were peaking, a new filing shows.
Buffett’s firm – which bought some $3B of OXY stock less than two weeks ago – disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that its units added another 27.1M shares to their stake this past Wednesday through Friday.
The company said it paid between $51.02 and $58.58 to buy the stock in a series of transactions.
The disclosure came just a week after BRK.A revealed in an earlier SEC form that its units bought 60M of OXY shares between March 2 and 4 at prices ranging from $47.07 to $56.45.
Those stock buys and BRK.A’s latest purchases give Buffett’s companies a total of about 118.3M OXY common shares, plus warrants granting the right to acquire some 83.9M additional common shares at about $59.62 each. Berkshire units also own 100,000 OXY preferred shares.
The company had owned about 30M OXY shares and 83.9M warrants prior to its March purchases.
Buffett is loading up on energy giant Occidental (OXY) just as the company’s stock price has been soaring as oil prices take off due to the Russia-Ukraine War and sanctions against Moscow.
Russia is one of the world’s largest producers, and questions about whether it can continue to export oil and gas sent West Texas Intermediate crude oil (CL1:COM) to 14-year highs of around $130 a barrel earlier this week. Those gains also drove OXY to a $59.60 52-week high on Thursday just as Buffett was buying.
WTI later pulled back to end Friday at $109.33 a barrel, while Occidental (OXY) finished the week at $57.95, down 0.3% on Friday’s session and 2.8% from its Thursday intraday peak.
Still, the oil giant’s shares remain at about a three-year high, while West Texas Intermediate is trading at its highest levels in some 13-1/2 years.
As for Occidental (OXY), Seeking Alpha contributors have a wide range of views as to where the stock goes from here. Contributor The Value Portfolio gives OXY a “Buy” rating, while Logan Kane calls the stock a “Hold” and Paul Franke makes the case for selling or shorting the firm.