Occidental Petroleum (OXY) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 10, 2023 1:00 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks：

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Occidental's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note this 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

Thank you, Jason. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for participating in Occidental's first quarter 2023 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 Investor 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. We'll also reference a few non-GAAP financial measures today. Reconciliations to the nearest corresponding GAAP measure can be found in the schedules or earnings release and on our website.

I'll now turn the call over to Vicki. Vicki, please go ahead.

Vicki Hollub

Thank you, Neil. And good afternoon, everyone. The operational and financial successes we achieved last year continued into 2023, as I will detail in our first quarter call. Our operational excellence and disciplined approach to capital spending enabled us to meaningfully progress our shareholder return framework. Our continued efforts to strengthen our balance sheet culminated in regaining an investment-grade credit rating from Moody's.

This afternoon, I will begin by covering our first quarter performance, followed by an update on several accomplishments in our oil and gas business. In light of recent market volatility, I will then go over the cash flow priorities established during our last call and highlight the progress made in transferring enterprise value to our common shareholders. Then Rob will detail the commencement and status of the preferred equity redemption before covering our financial results and guidance, including an increase to full year oil and gas production and an OxyChem pre-tax earnings.

Our operational success, even in the first quarters lower commodity price environment enabled us to generate approximately $1.7 billion of free cash flow before working capital. Excess cash was primarily allocated towards approximately $750 million of common share repurchases in the quarter, accounting for over 25% of our $3 billion share repurchase program, and triggering the redemption of nearly $650 million of preferred equity.