Occidental Petroleum NYSE: OXY used its 2026 annual meeting of shareholders to highlight what President and CEO Vicki Hollub called a “transformational” decade for the company, marked by portfolio changes, expanded resources, and balance sheet work. Hollub also announced a leadership transition, saying she will retire as CEO on June 1 but remain on the board, with current Chief Operating Officer Richard Jackson set to become president and CEO and join the board the same day.
Hollub details portfolio shift and OxyChem divestiture
Hollub said the company’s “last major step” in its 10-year plan was the sale of OxyChem, which was announced the prior year and closed in January. She said the divestiture, “made possible by the quality of our oil and gas portfolio,” strengthened the balance sheet and will allow Occidental to “deliver greater value” from its high-return oil and gas assets. “As a result,” she said, “the portfolio we have today is the strongest Oxy has ever had.”
2025 operating and financial results highlighted
Reviewing 2025 performance, Hollub said Occidental delivered record annual production of 1.43 million barrels of oil equivalent per day while spending $300 million less in oil and gas capital and reducing operating expenses by $275 million. She added that employees achieved those results while setting “a new safety performance record.”
Hollub also said the company increased its resource base by 2.5 billion BOE in 2025 to 16.5 billion BOE, compared to 8 billion BOE in 2015. She said that resource base provides “more than 30 years of low-cost development opportunity,” which Occidental can optimize using its enhanced oil recovery expertise across conventional and unconventional fields.
On cash generation, Hollub said Occidental produced $10.5 billion of operating cash flow and $4.3 billion of free cash flow before working capital in 2025. She said that performance enabled the company to accelerate principal debt reduction by $4 billion. Including net proceeds from the OxyChem divestiture, Hollub said principal debt was reduced to approximately $13.8 billion as of March 19, the date of the proxy statement.
Dividend, efficiency initiatives, and balance sheet priorities
Hollub said the company’s financial performance supported a February increase in the quarterly dividend, which she said was up more than 18% since the beginning of 2025. In response to a shareholder question about dividend growth, Hollub said a “sustainable and growing dividend remains central to our strategy.” She said the board authorized “a more than 8% increase” in the common dividend in February, bringing the annual rate—subject to board approval—to $1.04 per share from $0.96 previously.
Hollub tied dividend capacity to efforts taken since the CrownRock acquisition announced in December 2023, saying the company has worked to strengthen the balance sheet, improve resilience in lower commodity price environments, and “free up cash from interest payments to increase the quarterly dividend.” She added, “we’ve almost doubled our dividend over that time period.”
Looking forward, Hollub said Occidental is focused on extending and enhancing its low-cost resource base, generating resilient free cash flow through commodity price cycles, and driving cost and capital efficiency. She said the company has already seen “considerable efficiency gains” from implementing artificial intelligence across the business and expects more gains over time, while continuing to prioritize net debt reduction.
CEO transition and board refreshment discussion
Hollub told shareholders she will retire as president and CEO on June 1 after 10 years in the role but will remain on the board. She said the company is “well-positioned for the next stage of our strategy,” adding that Richard Jackson’s “experience, operational expertise, vision, and passion” make him “perfectly suited” to lead that next stage.
Board Chairman Jack Moore thanked Hollub for her service and said she helped build a culture focused on teamwork, innovation, and operational excellence. Moore also said Hollub, as the first female CEO of a major U.S. oil and gas company, helped “pave the way for the next generation of women in the oil and gas industry.”
Responding to shareholder questions about board composition and refreshment—including oversight in what was described as the “intelligence age”—Corporate Secretary Nicole Clark said the company had 10 director nominees up for election, nine of whom were independent. Clark said the board is committed to ongoing refreshment and balancing tenure, backgrounds, and skills, noting that “a third of the Independent Directors” began service within the past five years.
Moore added that the governance committee periodically discusses refreshment and that the board conducts annual performance evaluations that include ranking preferred director skills and qualifications. While he said the current board size and compensation are working well, Moore said the board will be “opportunistic” about adding members with an emphasis on “industry experience and technology,” and that directors receive briefings on Occidental’s AI and technology initiatives.
Voting results and shareholder Q&A topics
Clark reported preliminary voting results showing broad support across all proposals. Shareholders approved:
- Election of each of the 10 director nominees, with an average level of support of 98%
- Advisory approval of named executive officer compensation, with over 94% support
- Ratification of KPMG as independent auditor for the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2026, with over 97% support
In additional shareholder Q&A after the formal meeting, Hollub addressed questions about international operations and natural gas pricing. On the Middle East, she recognized employees, partners, and host governments for focusing on safety and asset reliability “under very challenging circumstances,” and said the company is closely monitoring the conflict. Hollub said Occidental’s footprint is “substantially more domestic now,” lowering geopolitical exposure, and added she does not expect the company’s risk appetite or asset mix to significantly change. She said Occidental would provide an update on the conflict’s operational and financial impacts on its earnings call the following week.
On U.S. natural gas realizations versus market benchmarks, Hollub said increased unconventional oil production in the Permian and DJ basins—combined with limited local demand—has created “unprecedented volumes of associated gas” that must be transported long distances, leading to lower realized prices in Occidental’s operating areas. She said the midstream and marketing team works with partners to maximize the combined value of oil, NGLs, and gas by optimizing contracts and using natural gas storage assets during market dislocations. Hollub added that growing electricity demand could affect regional and seasonal natural gas demand and both benchmark and realized prices in coming years.
About Occidental Petroleum NYSE: OXY
Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) is an international energy company engaged primarily in the exploration, production and marketing of oil and natural gas. The company conducts upstream activities to discover and produce hydrocarbons and operates complementary midstream and marketing functions to transport and sell its production. Occidental also owns a chemicals business that manufactures and sells industrial chemicals and related products for a range of end markets.
Occidental's operations are concentrated in the United States, with a significant presence in the Permian Basin, and it maintains exploration and production activities in several international regions, including parts of the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.
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