Occidental offloads chemicals unit in $9.7 billion deal with Berkshire to cut debt

By Pooja Menon and Sheila Dang (Reuters) -Occidental Petroleum will sell its chemicals arm OxyChem to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway for $9.7 billion, the company said on Thursday, marking its biggest divestment yet to slash debt after years of costly acquisitions. Shares of the U.S. oil and gas producer, however, fell more than 6% in morning trading. Roth MKM analysts said in a note the sale of OxyChem could weigh on free cash flow growth in coming years, as the unit was expected to contribute significantly to expansion. Scotiabank analyst Paul Cheng noted that the transaction price seemed low as he had previously estimated the division's value at $12 billion. OxyChem, which produces chemicals used for treating swimming pools and vinyl products used for water supply piping and medical supplies, generated combined revenue of $2.42 billion in the first two quarters of this year. If the deal closes, it would be the biggest purchase for Berkshire since its $11.6 billion buyout of insurance firm Alleghany Corporation in 2022, and expand its chemical portfolio beyond Lubrizol. Berkshire is Occidental's largest shareholder and it began acquiring a stake in the company in February 2022, around the time when Russia invaded Ukraine. The divestment highlights the close ties between the two. In a 2019 meeting with Buffett, Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub secured a $10 billion investment that allowed her to make an offer for oil producer Anadarko Petroleum, outbidding rival Chevron to secure some of the richest shale oilfields in Texas. But the $55 billion purchase of Anadarko left Occidental saddled with debt. The burden was exacerbated after the company closed its $12 billion acquisition of privately held U.S. shale oil producer CrownRock last year. To reduce its massive debt load, which stood at $23.34 billion by the end of June, Occidental has been steadily divesting assets in recent years. The company had disclosed in August $950 million of additional divestitures since the start of the second quarter, of which $370 million had already closed and it repaid $3 billion of debt year-to-date. Occidental said on Thursday it would use $6.5 billion of the proceeds to reduce debt, bringing the total principal debt below the $15 billion target set after the CrownRock deal. The latest deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, also indicates that Occidental is refocusing on its oil and gas business, which formed 75% of its total earnings last year. CEO Hollub said OxyChem's sale would allow Occidental to "unlock 20-plus years of low-cost resource runway" in oil and gas. (Reporting by Pooja Menon in Bengaluru and Sheila Dang in Houston; Editing by Nathan Crooks, Nia Williams, Shilpi Majumdar and Franklin Paul)

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