Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett. Buffett’s company received FERC approval to buy up to 50 percent of Occidental Petroleum’s stock.
Vikas Mittal, marketing professor at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, said Buffett’s investments are also a bet on disciplined spending in the oil patch, showing support for Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub. Those extremes have led to investor calls for more tempered growth, which appear to be working for Occidental. In the three-month period ending June 30,and paid down around $4.8 billion in debt, ending the quarter with $35 billion in net debt.
A spokesperson for Oxy said the FERC approval was necessary because Oxy owns assets subject to FERC regulation.