Occidental Petroleum, (NYSE: OXY), lit up the Permian sky, with its mid-April announcement that it was going to call and raise Chevron’s (NYSE:CVX) bid for Anadarko Petroleum, (NYSE: APC). Almost immediately two things began to happen. First, the stocks of both companies sank, big. They kept sinking proportionately until the news broke at the end of April that OXY Gulfstream jet had been spotted in Omaha, where the CEO, Vicki Hollub had paid a visit to the Oracle. Ms. Hollub must have made a convincing pitch, as she came away with a big $10 bn financial commitment. Chevron stock immediately reversed course, with a 5 percent gain, attenuating this substantially though as the market fretted it would meet and raise OXY. As we now know that didn’t happen, and CVX has resumed its upward march. Not so OXY, the victor in this contest. OXY has just been pummeled by […]