Berkshire Hathaway bought about 5.9 million more shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp, in addition to the 14.6% stake the conglomerate previously held in the oil giant, reports Yahoo! Finance. The shares were purchased on May 2nd & 3rd according to a filing late in the day on May 4th that is cited in the article.
The new shares, in addition to the previous stake, were on top of the preferred stake that Berkshire acquired in 2019, when Occidental was organizing its deal for Anadarko Petroleum Corp, and indicate Warren Buffett’s continued confidence in his bet on the oil industry. In fact, at the recent Berkshire shareholder meeting, Buffett told investors that the U.S. should be producing more of its own oil.
For its part, Occidental has benefited not only from Buffett’s purchases but also the war in Ukraine that has driven oil prices to soar. The stock gained 3.9% on the 4th in the wake of the filing. It was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 in this year’s first quarter and has more than doubled so far in 2022.
