Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway buys another 5.9M Occidental shares

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Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) again loaded up on Occidental Petroleum stock this week purchasing 5.9 million shares for about $345 million.

He purchased shares on Monday and Tuesday for average per-share prices ranging from $55.99 to $58.37, according to an SEC filing. The purchases bring Berkshire's stake to 142.3 million shares.

In the first quarter, Berkshire (BRK.A) purchased ~$7.0b worth of the Occidental. Buffett noted at the Berkshire annual meeting over the weekend that he was able to buy 14% of the petroleum refiner over only a two-week period.

Buffett offered few insights into oil markets (USO) at the annual gathering, rather indicating that he'd read a report on Occidental (NYSE:OXY) over a weekend and felt the CEO was simply running the company well; Buffett has been a long-time shareholder in Chevron (CVX).

In addition to the common shares in Occidental (OXY), Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire (NYSE:BRK.B) holds 200,000 series A preferred stock. Warrants that Berkshire holds would allow it to buy almost 84M shares of OXY stock at $59.624 per share.

Also see, Berkshire Hathaway invested over $40B in three weeks in Q1: annual meeting.