Oxy focuses on large, long-lived oil and gas assets with long-term growth potential. We invest only in opportunities that we believe will complement existing assets in our three core producing regions and will meet the company’s threshold for returns on invested capital.
Core Regions
Oxy operates in three core geographic regions: the United States, the Middle East/North Africa and Latin America.
Our U.S. operations are concentrated in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeast New Mexico; California; and our Mid-Continent Gas properties, primarily in the Piceance Basin in Colorado, the Hugoton Field in Kansas and Oklahoma, and the Permian Basin. Collectively, these U.S. operations account for most of Oxy’s total worldwide oil and gas production and our worldwide proved reserves.
Oxy’s Middle East/North Africa operations in Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Oman, Qatar and Yemen collectively provide more than one-third of the company’s total worldwide production and proved reserves. Latin America operations — in Bolivia and Colombia — account for the balance of Oxy's production and proved reserves.
Regional highlights include:
- Largest liquids producer in the 48 contiguous United States according to industry research firm Wood MacKenzie
- Largest oil producer in Texas and New Mexico
- Largest natural gas producer and largest oil and gas producer in California on a gross-operated barrels of oil equivalent basis
- One of the largest oil producers in Oman and the second-largest oil producer offshore Qatar
- A partner in the transborder Dolphin natural gas project – one of the largest energy initiatives ever undertaken in the Middle East
- One of the only American companies to be producing in the prolific Iraq oilfields
Reserves
Oxy consistently replenishes and expands reserves through strategic acquisitions; improved recovery and enhanced recovery techniques; and focused exploration.
Technology
Oxy invests in state-of-the-art equipment and tools to find, develop, produce and deliver energy resources.
In both domestic and international operations, Oxy is an acknowledged leader in cost-effectively increasing production from mature oil and gas fields and accessing hard-to-reach reserves through the application of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. Among these is carbon dioxide (CO2) flooding, commonly known as CO2 EOR, which increases ultimate oil and associated gas recovery by 15 to 25 percent in the fields where it is employed. Circulating in a “closed loop” process, over time virtually all of the CO2 is safely and securely sequestered in the reservoir. In addition to boosting oil and gas production, this technology provides environmental benefits.
A global leader in the use of CO2 EOR, Oxy operates more than two dozen active CO2 flood projects. We inject 1.7 billion cubic feet of CO2 per day, or approximately half a trillion cubic feet per year, making Oxy the largest handler of CO2 in the world.