Key Stats for OXY Stock
- 52-Week Range: $38.80 – $67.45
- Current Price: $56.54
- Street Mean Target: $65.50
- Q1 2026 Adjusted EPS: $1.06
- Q1 2026 Production: 1,426 Mboed
- Q1 2026 Free Cash Flow (before working capital): $1.7B
- Principal Debt Remaining: $13.3B (down from ~$23B at start of 2025)
- Berkshire Hathaway Ownership: ~27%
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The OxyChem Sale Changed Everything About This Balance Sheet
Occidental Petroleum (OXY) has carried a debt load that has made investors nervous for years. The 2019 Anadarko acquisition was strategically bold but financially punishing, and the company has been working its way out from under it ever since. In Q1 2026, that work accelerated meaningfully.
Occidental sold OxyChem to Berkshire Hathaway for roughly $10 billion, using the proceeds to retire $7.1 billion in principal debt through May 5. Principal debt now stands at $13.3 billion, down from roughly $23 billion at the start of 2025, and management has set $10 billion as its next milestone.
CEO Vicki Hollub, who announced her retirement effective June 1, framed the sale as “an important milestone in the strategic transformation of our company.” Her successor, Richard Jackson, steps in with the balance sheet in the best shape it has been since Anadarko closed.
Less debt means less interest expense, which means more cash available for dividends, buybacks, and reinvestment. The quarterly dividend has already been raised 8% to $0.26 per share and has roughly doubled over four years.
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Production Beat Guidance, But the Revenue Chart Tells a Longer Story
Production of 1,426 Mboed exceeded the high end of guidance in Q1, led by the Permian, Rockies, and Gulf of America. Free cash flow before working capital came in at $1.7 billion, up 52% year over year, drawing fresh analyst upgrades, including Barclays lifting OXY to Overweight with a $72 price target.
The revenue and free cash flow chart puts that result in context. Revenue peaked at $36.6 billion in 2022, when oil prices surged, and then fell steadily to $21.6 billion in 2025 as realized crude prices softened. Free cash flow followed, dropping from $11.7 billion to $3.8 billion over the same stretch.
The Q1 recovery is real, but it is being driven in part by WTI averaging $71.93 per barrel in the quarter, up from $59.22 in Q4 2025, rather than purely by operational improvement. OXY’s earnings move with oil, and the chart makes that relationship visible.
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From $0.31 to $1.06: What the EPS Recovery Actually Reflects
Adjusted EPS bottomed at $0.31 in Q4 2025 and bounced to $1.06 in Q1 2026, a sharp recovery that reflects higher realized prices and $2 billion in cumulative cost savings since 2023, with another $500 million targeted this year.
The forward curve on the chart shows consensus expecting EPS to climb toward $1.88 in the second half of 2026, then gradually decline through 2027.
That shape embeds a specific assumption: a moderately constructive oil environment, not a continuation of the current geopolitical spike.
Roughly 84% of OXY’s resource base breaks even at or below $50 per barrel, providing a floor. But the ceiling is still largely a function of where crude trades, not how efficiently the company operates.
OXY Has Beaten Estimates in Every Key Metric for 5 Straight Quarters
The beats-and-misses table is one of the strongest operational cases you can make for OXY right now. Across five consecutive quarters, Occidental has beaten consensus EBITDA estimates by between 7% and 23%, with the Q1 2026 beat coming in at nearly 23%.
The EPS beat in Q1 was even more striking, adjusted EPS of $1.06 came in roughly 80% above the $0.59 consensus estimate, and operating cash flow topped estimates by 28%.
The table shows that analysts have consistently underestimated how much OXY could wring out of its portfolio even as oil prices were declining. The 77% EPS beat in Q4 2025 occurred in a quarter when realized crude averaged just $59.22 per barrel.
That’s the cost discipline story in numbers, and it’s the reason Wall Street has been revising estimates higher rather than lower heading into the back half of 2026.
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Should You Invest in Occidental Petroleum
OXY is a cleaner company than it was a year ago, with less debt, a sharper asset focus, and a track record of beating expectations even when oil wasn’t cooperating. The balance sheet transformation is real and still in progress, with management targeting $10 billion in principal debt as the next milestone.
The remaining question is valuation, as the stock is up roughly 33% year-to-date, and the Street mean target of $65.50 implies around 16% upside from here.
Whether that gap closes depends heavily on where oil goes, OXY’s earnings move with crude more than almost anything else. For investors who want leveraged exposure to oil with improving financial discipline behind it, this is one of the better-constructed ways to get it.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
