Occidental Petroleum loops Carlsbad twice in a single hour

Occidental Petroleum flew from Cavern City Air Terminal back to Cavern City Air Terminal on May 26, 2026, a 24-minute circuit that never exceeded 3,325 feet. The departure and arrival coordinates are identical, making this less a journey than a loop — a short-hop check of the region’s infrastructure.

The same week, Occidental Petroleum faces dual pressures: a drone-strike outage at its Shah gas project in the UAE, per the Houston Business Journal, and a Q1 earnings call in which executives touted lower decline rates from enhanced oil recovery in the Permian. Carlsbad sits at the doorstep of the Delaware Basin, where Occidental Petroleum concentrates its CO₂ EOR work.

Recent flights show a shuttle rhythm between Houston (KIAH) and Midland (KMAF) and Carlsbad (KCNM). This 24-minute hop appears to be a crew positioning or runway validation — the kind of invisible logistics that keep a basin running while geopolitics rattles the portfolio.