More than a year since former CEO Ray Irani’s final departure from the company and the strategic shift away from the Middle East that followed, US mini-major Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) has yet to sell any of the Middle East assets it had planned to offload earlier this year.

However, despite the fact that Oxy’s Middle East asset sale found itself caught in a geopolitical morass this year, the company’s CEO, Steve Chazen, insists in the firm’s 2Q14 analyst call that Oxy will move forward with the plan: “In the Middle East, we continue to make progress and negotiations with our partners, we will reduce our exposure to the region. Our goal here is to improve the businesses’ ability to grow profitably.” (CONTINUED - 1087 WORDS)