March 15, 2022: -After spending around $4.5 billion last week to buy 91.2 million shares of Occidental Petroleum, he’s spent above $1.5 billion this week to add another 27.1 million shares to Berkshire Hathaway’s stake.

On Friday, an SEC filing revealed the purchases were made on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at prices amid $51.03 and $58.58. The weighted average of the buys is around $56.60.

That gives Berkshire a total of 118.3 million shares worth nearly $6.9 billion at Friday’s close of $57.95.

As a result, OXY moves up a notch to 9th place on Berkshire’s list of biggest reported holdings of publicly-traded U.S. shares.

And it gives Berkshire almost 12% of Occidental’s outstanding shares.

When its warrants to buy almost 84 million shares, obtained as part of its 2019 deal that helped finance Occidental’s purchase of Anadarko, are included, the stake that the SEC is paying attention to is nearly 20%.

The warrants have an exercise price of $59.624, meaning they are a few cents away from being ‘in the money.’ Berkshire could use them to buy at a price lower than the market price, which generates an instant paper profit, which increases as the stock prices go up.

Occidental shares are up almost 90% over the last 12 months as oil prices have surged.

On Friday, shares of Berkshire touched an all-time high and are up 9% so far in 2022.