Occidental Petroleum shuttles to the Permian Basin the week after a new CEO takes the helm

Occidental Petroleum flew a company ERJ-175 from Cavern City Air Terminal in Carlsbad, New Mexico, to Midland International Air and Space Port on June 10, a 34-minute hop that dropped the aircraft into the heart of the Permian Basin. The short leg, part of a day of regional shuttling, landed just nine days after Richard Jackson succeeded Vicki Hollub as chief executive.

The timing ties directly to Jackson’s public emphasis on execution and delivery, as noted in Occidental’s Q1 2026 earnings call on May 6 ([oxy.com](https://www.oxy.com/siteassets/documents/investors/quarterly-earnings/oxy1q26transcript.pdf)). Midland is the nerve center of Occidental’s domestic upstream operations, where the company reported strong Permian performance and record Gulf of America uptime. This trip is almost certainly a field visit to underscore Jackson’s focus on cost efficiency and lowering decline rates.

Recent flight patterns show Occidental routinely shuffling people between Houston, Carlsbad, and Midland, with a rare international leg to Shannon, Ireland, on June 10. The CEO transition, planned for years per the board, arrives as crude prices hover above $109 per barrel and the company’s debt stands at $13.3 billion, well on its way to a $10 billion milestone ([biggo.com](https://finance.biggo.com/news/US_OXY_2026-05-06)). For a leadership handoff built on continuity, there’s no better place to start than the core of the asset base.