Billionaire Buffett backs up the truck with 12M more Occidental Petroleum shares

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) disclosed it purchased an additional 12 million Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) shares this week as the billionaire adds to his sizeable stake in the oil giant.

Buffett purchased the 12 million shares for about $700 million at average price of $58.11 on Tuesday and Wednesday and now owns a total of 175 million shares, giving Berkshire a stake of about 18.6{3b930a6ca12a59604e1bbadfc55b7d1b7a0aa8613f1ab9377cace0d5afcb5fb9}, according to a filing. Berkshire paid in the range of $57 to $59 for the shares.

The latest purchase comes after Buffett spent almost $630 million last week adding to his stake in the oil producer, disclosing late last week that he had purchased 9.9 million shares. Berkshire (BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) is Occidental’s (OXY) largest individual shareholder with 175 million shares worth about $10.8 billion, based on OXY’s Thursday close at $61.47, with options to buy another 83.9M shares that would bring its stake to about 28{3b930a6ca12a59604e1bbadfc55b7d1b7a0aa8613f1ab9377cace0d5afcb5fb9}.

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 ~$7.0 billion worth of Occidental shares. Buffett noted at the Berkshire annual meeting in early May that he was able to buy 14{3b930a6ca12a59604e1bbadfc55b7d1b7a0aa8613f1ab9377cace0d5afcb5fb9} of the petroleum refiner over only a two-week period.