Occidental’s 2026 U.S. drilling activity remains concentrated in the Permian Basin, which accounts for 434 of the 540 drilling records tracked through November 9. Loving County leads with 106 records, while the company also maintains activity across the DJ Basin, Powder River Basin and offshore Gulf. Precision 564, Precision 562 and AKITA 524 lead the contractor-and-rig rankings, together accounting for 99 records.
The drilling footprint complements Occidental’s Q3 operating results, with U.S. onshore production exceeding guidance midpoint by 20,000 BOE per day and New Mexico reaching record gross operated production of 284,000 BOE per day. Alongside new drilling, Occidental is expanding conventional horizontal development, sidetracks and enhanced oil recovery while applying AI surveillance to approximately 9,000 artificial-lift wells. These initiatives support management’s strategy to improve recovery, reduce equipment failures and lower the company’s overall production decline rate toward 20% by 2030.
Q3/2026 Call Transcripts
- U.S. onshore production exceeded expectations: Q3 production was 20,000 BOE/d above guidance midpoint, supported by strong existing-well and new-well performance.
- New Mexico set a production record: Gross operated production reached 284,000 BOE/d, up approximately 23% since January.
- Powder River Basin activity accelerated: Oxy brought 27 wells online in Q3, more than in any previous full year. Net production averaged 23,000 BOE/d, up more than 70% from Q1.
- U.S. unconventional wells outperformed peers: Management said its 2025–2026 wells delivered at least 10% above industry-average six-month cumulative oil production per lateral foot in every basin. In parts of the Delaware Basin, increasing wells per bench delivered similar individual-well performance while increasing recovery per drilling spacing unit by up to 2.5 times.
- Midland Basin Barnett development showed strong results: Drilling, completion and equipping costs were below $750 per lateral foot. Oxy reported more than 10 of the top 15 wells measured by six-month oil production per foot and plans to return to its core acreage after appraisal work.
- Permian conventional development added production: Oxy drilled eight new horizontal wells and approximately 80 sidetracks during 2026. Together, these programs added 10,000 BOE/d by the end of Q3. Management identified another 500 sidetrack candidates and more than 200 million BOE of development-ready conventional horizontal resources.
- Enhanced oil recovery remains a major investment priority: Oxy identified approximately 2 billion BOE of conventional EOR resources, primarily across its 1.2-million-acre Central Basin Platform position, plus another 2 billion BOE of unconventional EOR resources. Its first three commercial unconventional projects are progressing toward injection by 2029.
- AI is improving production and equipment reliability: Approximately 9,000 artificial-lift wells, or 68%, are under AI surveillance. Management cited production uplift of up to 7% annually and a 22% reduction in failure frequency versus 2023. About half of the monitored wells have autonomous capabilities, with substantial deployment in the Delaware Basin.
- Gulf offshore production suffered temporary downtime: Third-party gas pipeline constraints and maintenance reduced Q3 output, with pipeline-related curtailments extending into Q4. Production was fully restored by late October; an early-October hurricane also affected Q4.
- Gulf waterflood investment is expanding: The King project began injection in July. Oxy identified approximately 450 million BOE of waterflood resources at less than $40 breakeven. Two planned Horn Mountain injection wells are expected to cost approximately $100 million each and take about four months each to drill and complete.
- Domestic costs continued to improve: Q3 domestic lease operating expense was $8.54/BOE, better than guidance. Oxy expects more than 7% improvement in new-well costs and approximately 3% improvement in domestic LOE and transportation costs during 2026. Q4 LOE is expected to rise because of higher CO₂ costs and additional high-return workovers.
- Lower-cost CO₂ could support Permian EOR: Agreements cover 2 million metric tons annually from third-party gas processing plants, equivalent to roughly 15% of 2026 purchased CO₂. The projects remain subject to final investment decisions expected in early 2027.
- STRATOS remains on its start-up schedule: Full plant start-up is targeted around year-end, followed by an operating ramp-up in 2027. Management maintained its $90 million–$130 million project EBITDA outlook for 2028.
- 2027 U.S. outlook: Management expects modest Permian production growth. Rockies production should remain approximately flat, with Powder River growth offsetting DJ Basin declines. Gulf production could be lower depending on the timing of injection-well investment and development drilling.
OXY USA Inc. — 540 U.S. drilling records YTD
The file contains 540 records, with Activity Dates from January 1 through November 9, 2026. Counts below reflect all supplied records, with no duplicate rows found.
Record count by Province/State
Province/State Records Texas 316 New Mexico 118 Colorado 70 Wyoming 26 Federal Offshore Gulf 10 Total 540
Record count by play/basin
The basin groupings below are geographic classifications based on the counties. Gulf entries represent offshore areas rather than counties.
Play/Basin Counties or offshore areas and record counts Total Permian Basin Loving 106; Glasscock 63; Eddy 62; Lea 56; Reeves 34; Howard 23; Martin 23; Yoakum 21; Midland 20; Andrews 15; Gaines 8; Kent 2; Terry 1 434 Denver–Julesburg Basin Weld 62; Larimer 6; Arapahoe 2 70 Powder River Basin Converse 26 26 Gulf offshore Green Canyon 4; Viosca Knoll 3; Mississippi Canyon 2; Keathley Canyon 1 10 Total 540
The Permian accounts for 80.4% of the records, followed by the DJ Basin at 13.0%, Powder River at 4.8%, and Gulf offshore at 1.9%.
Top 10 Contractor and Rig combinations
These are drilling-record counts, rather than current active-rig counts.
Rank Contractor and Rig Records 1 Precision 564 34 2 Precision 562 33 3 AKITA 524 32 4 H&P 244 28 5 H&P 620 26 6 Precision 580 26 7 H&P 252 24 8 H&P 423 22 9 H&P 266 22 10 H&P 451 22 Top 10 total 269
The top 10 combinations represent 49.8% of all records.
OXY’s U.S. drilling file contains 540 records through November 9, 2026, with 434 in the Permian Basin, 70 in the DJ Basin, 26 in the Powder River Basin and 10 offshore in the Gulf. Its Q3 results highlight strong onshore production alongside expanding enhanced oil recovery, sidetrack development and AI-enabled operations aimed at improving recovery, reliability and capital efficiency.
Author: phinds