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About Oxy
Who We Are
Company Overview
Message from Executive Management
Historical Highlights
What We Do
Where We Operate
Historical Highlights 

The third-largest American oil and gas company based on equity market capitalization, Occidental Petroleum is a market leader in many respects. Oxy’s success is a direct outcome of the company’s visionary leadership and ongoing commitment to enhance stockholder value.

Employing a disciplined financial strategy and focusing on high-potential oil and gas assets in our core geographic regions, Oxy has consistently achieved top-tier results on key metrics watched by the investment community. For example:

  • As of year-end 2011, Oxy led its peer group in total stockholder return over the past five-years with a 110 percent return. Over the past decade, Oxy's total stockholder return was 769 percent.
  • The compounded annual average growth rate of Oxy's market cap over the past 10 years was 22.6 percent – increasing Oxy's market cap to nearly $76 billion at year-end 2011.
  • Oxy has continuously paid quarterly dividends to its stockholders since 1975. Effective February 2012, the annual dividend was increased 17 percent to an annual rate of $2.16 per share.

Oxy is the largest liquids producer in the 48 contiguous United States according to industry research firm Wood MacKenzie. It is the No. 1 oil producer in Texas and California’s largest natural gas producer and the state's largest oil and gas producer on a gross-operated barrels of oil equivalent basis. Oxy was founded in California in 1920 and made its first major discovery in Sacramento Valley in 1961. More than half the company’s worldwide production continues to come from its U.S. operations.

Oxy has been an active investor in the Middle East and North Africa for more than 40 years, with operations in Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The region accounts for more than a third of Oxy’s worldwide production. 

Latin America operations – in Bolivia and Colombia – account for Oxy’s additional production. More than a billion barrels of oil have been produced at Colombia’s Caño Limón field since it was discovered by Oxy in 1983.

Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem) is a leading North American manufacturer of basic chemicals and vinyls essential to public health and modern life. For every product it makes, OxyChem’s market position is No. 1 or No. 2 in the U.S. and No. 1, 2 or 3 in the world. OxyChem was established in 1987.

Over the years, a number of milestones have propelled Oxy’s growth. These include:

  • 2011: Oxy acquired a 40-percent participating interest in the Al Hosn Gas Project. Oxy partnered with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in a 30-year joint venture agreement to develop one of the largest gas fields in the Middle East.
  • 2010: Oxy announced the acquisition of assets in South Texas and North Dakota and the selling of its assets in Argentina. Eni, Oxy and Korea Gas signed a contract with Iraq’s state-owned South Oil Company and Missan Oil Company as State Partner, to redevelop the Zubair Field, near Basra in southern Iraq.
  • 2009: Oxy announced a significant discovery of oil and gas reserves in Kern County, California. Oxy and Mubadala Development Company (Mubadala) with the National Oil and Gas Authority of Bahrain (NOGA) started operations for the further development of the Bahrain Field. Oxy also acquired the commodities investment company Phibro from Citigroup and OxyChem acquired Dow Chemical Company’s calcium chloride operations, the world’s largest.
  • 2008: Oxy signed agreements for various projects in the Middle East/North Africa region, including an agreement to develop gas fields and to explore for potential new discoveries in the Sultanate of Oman. In the U.S., Oxy purchased interests in the Permian and Piceance basins.
  • 2007: The giant Dolphin Project, one of the largest energy projects ever undertaken in the Middle East, became fully operational and currently delivers natural gas to customers in the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Oxy has been a partner in the Dolphin Project since 2002.
  • 2006: Oxy acquired production assets from Vintage Petroleum in Latin America, California and the Middle East. OxyChem acquired chemical assets in the U.S. from Vulcan Materials Company.
  • 2005: Oxy signed an agreement with Libya’s National Oil Company to re-enter the country to participate in exploration and production operations.
  • 2004: Oxy signed a new production-sharing contract for the Mukhaizna oilfield, one of the largest in Oman.
  • 2000: The purchase of Altura Energy, Ltd., in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeast New Mexico made Oxy the largest oil producer in Texas.
  • 1998: Oxy became the largest natural gas producer in California with the purchase of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 78-percent interest in Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve.

View Oxy: A Corporate History (PDF), an expanded timeline of key events in the company's history.

Oxy has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1964. Oxy stock has split twice: a 2-for-1 stock split on July 20, 2006, and a 3-for-1 stock split on January 29, 1968. In February 2012, the Board of Directors approved Oxy’s eleventh dividend increase since 2002.