The first major bidding war has broken out in the Permian.
After being rebuffed several times, Occidental Petroleum Corp. April 24 made public a $38 billion offer to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp., seeking to break up a proposed takeover by Chevron Corp. The $76 per share cash-and-stock bid for The Woodlands, Texas-based oil and natural gas producer is 20 percent more than Chevron’s $33 billion April 12 agreement.
The acquisition would be the largest ever proposed by Occidental, which has a market value of $46.6 billion, and would be the biggest purchase of an oil producer in at least four ...