Occidental Strikes Oil in California
July 22, 2009 by Mark Ellis
Filed under Business
Occidental Petroleum Corp., Texas’s biggest producer of oil, has just increased its fortunes with a historic discovery in California. The company just discovered an enormous natural gas and oil field that holds the equivalent of 250 million barrels of crude, which makes it the largest discovery in the state in the last 35 years.
The field, which is located in California’s Kern County, belongs mostly to Occidental, and if the discovery pans out, it could boost Occidental’s California reserves by almost a third. Occidental decided last month to drill 20 exploratory wells last month, which means that this discovery has the potential to be followed by even more oil discoveries.
On the heels of Occidental’s good fortune, the company’s shares rose 1.4 percent to $71, meaning that Occidental’s shares have risen a total of 18 percent over the course of this year. So far, Occidental has outperformed the rest of its most significant U.S. rivals — Exxon Mobil, Chevron Corp., and Conoco Philip – each of which has experienced declines.
Image: Flickr
