Occidental Petroleum
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Feb 28, 2023, 1:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good afternoon and welcome to Occidental's fourth-quarter 2022 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] Please note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Neil Backhouse, vice president of investor relations. Please go ahead.
Neil Backhouse -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, Rocco. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in Occidental's fourth-quarter 2022 conference call. On the call with us today are Vicki Hollub, president and chief executive officer; Rob Peterson, senior vice president and chief financial officer; and Richard Jackson, president, operations, U.S. onshore resources and carbon management.
This afternoon, we will refer to slides available on the investors section of our website. The presentation includes a cautionary statement on Slide 2 regarding forward-looking statements that will be made on the call this afternoon. Will also reference a few non-GAAP financial measures today. Reconciliations to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure can be found in the schedules to our earnings release and on our website.
I'll now turn the call over to Vicki. Vicki, please go ahead.
Vicki Hollub -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Neil, and good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I'll begin with highlights of our 2022 achievements, including an oil and gas update, followed by our fourth-quarter performance. Next, I'll discuss our 2023 cash flow priorities, our enhanced shareholder return framework, and our 2023 capital plan. Rob will then provide an update on the status and mechanics of Oxy's preferred equity redemptions before reviewing our fourth-quarter financial results and 2023 guidance.
In 2022, our record net income of $12.5 billion generated a return on capital employed of 28%, which is the highest return we have achieved since before 2005. We also delivered record free cash flow before working capital of $13.6 billion, which enabled us to retire more than $10.5 billion of debt and to repurchase $3 billion of common shares. Our return on capital employed was enhanced by exceptional performance as our team set multiple operational and productivity records across our U.S. onshore, Gulf of Mexico, and international businesses.
OxyChem generated record earnings in our midstream business approximated guidance. Also, in 2022, our high-return Permian production grew by 90,000 BOE per day, propelled by outstanding well results. We delivered our best year ever in Delaware new well productivity, making 2022 the seventh year in a row that we were able to increase our average well productivity as shown in our presentation's appendix on Slide 29. Our teams accomplished this by applying our proprietary service modeling and completion designs to our high-quality reservoirs.