Occidental Petroleum flies home the week its CEO prepares to retire

Occidental Petroleum flew from Skywest Inc Airport in West Texas to Houston Bush Intercontinental on Thursday evening, a 66-minute hop in its Embraer ERJ-175. The aircraft, tail N170XY, had spent the previous two days shuttling between the Permian Basin and a site near Carlsbad, New Mexico — territory that anchors the company's domestic oil operations.

The same week, Occidental Petroleum's CEO Vicki Hollub is preparing to retire after a decade at the helm. On May 1, the company announced that Hollub will step down effective June 1 and be succeeded by Chief Operating Officer Richard Jackson, per a statement filed with the SEC [sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/797468/000095015726000569/ex99-1.htm). The timing of the flight suggests a final round of field visits before the transition: the ERJ-175 had been making loops between Houston and the Permian Basin all week.

Hollub, 66, leaves behind a company reshaped by the $38 billion-dollar acquisitions — Anadarko in 2019 and CrownRock in 2024, as Bloomberg noted [bloomberglaw.com](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/occidental-ceo-vicki-hollub-to-retire-and-be-succeeded-by-coo). She will remain on the board, but the aircraft's pattern this week reads like a farewell tour of the outgoing chief's last tour of the patch.