Barclays Downgrades OXY Shares

Analysts at Barclays downgraded Occidental Petroleum OXY from Overweight to Equal-weight and lowered the price target from $117 to $109 on Tuesday.

Thomas Driscoll notes that Occidental Petroleum has been slower than its peers to begin moving towards unconventional drilling opportunities, which will be reflected in the company’s multiple.

Analysts also feel that Occidental’s California Resource Corp may struggle to deliver group average growth due to a relatively high leverage burden and difficult regulatory environment.

Lastly, Driscoll mentioned, the MENA strategy has been difficult to implement stating, ”We speculate OXY could sell 1/3rd of its interest in these countries for ~$6 billion. While OXY Abu Dhabi or Oman may attract a premium multiple, we find it hard to assign a premium multiple to the overall segment.”

Shares of Occidental Petroleum recently traded at $98.11 down 0.15 percent.