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ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITIES AND EXPENDITURES | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 30, 2024
Environmental Remediation Obligations [Abstract] |
ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITIES AND EXPENDITURES |
NOTE 8 - ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITIES AND EXPENDITURES
Occidental and its subsidiaries and their respective operations are subject to stringent federal, regional, state, provincial, tribal, local and international laws and regulations related to improving or maintaining environmental quality. The laws that require or address environmental remediation, including CERCLA and similar federal, regional, state, provincial, tribal, local and international laws, may apply retroactively and regardless of fault, the legality of the original activities or the current ownership or control of sites. Occidental or certain of its subsidiaries participate in or actively monitor a range of remedial activities and government or private proceedings under these laws with respect to alleged past practices at Third-Party, Currently Operated, and Closed or Non-Operated Sites, which categories may include NPL Sites. Remedial activities may include one or more of the following: investigation involving sampling, modeling, risk assessment or monitoring; clean-up measures including removal, treatment or disposal; or operation and maintenance of remedial systems. The environmental proceedings seek funding or performance of remediation and, in some cases, compensation for alleged property damage, natural resource damages, punitive damages, civil penalties, injunctive relief and government oversight costs. ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION As of September 30, 2024, certain Occidental subsidiaries participated in or monitored remedial activities or proceedings at 159 sites. The following table presents the current and non-current environmental remediation liabilities of such subsidiaries on a consolidated basis as of September 30, 2024. The current portion of $131 million is included in accrued liabilities and the remainder of $847 million is included in deferred credits and other liabilities - environmental remediation liabilities. These environmental remediation sites are grouped into NPL Sites and the following three categories of non-NPL Sites—Third-Party Sites, Currently Operated Sites and Closed or Non-Operated Sites.
millions, except number of sites | Number of Sites | Remediation Balance
NPL Sites | 32 |  | $ | 437 |
Third-Party Sites | 64 |  | 212 |
Currently Operated Sites | 12 |  | 90 |
Closed or Non-Operated Sites | 51 |  | 239 |
Total | 159 |  | $ | 978 |
As of September 30, 2024, environmental remediation liabilities of Occidental subsidiaries exceeded $10 million each at 15 of the 159 sites described above, and 92 of the sites had liabilities from $0 to $1 million each. Based on current estimates, Occidental expects its subsidiaries to expend funds corresponding to approximately 40% of the period-end remediation balance over the next three to four years with the remainder over the subsequent 10 or more years. Occidental believes its range of reasonably possible additional losses of its subsidiaries beyond those amounts currently recorded for environmental remediation for the 159 environmental sites in the table above could be up to $2.7 billion. The status of Occidental's involvement with the sites and related significant assumptions have not changed materially since December 31, 2023. MAXUS ENVIRONMENTAL SITES A significant portion of aggregate estimates of environmental remediation liabilities and reasonably possible additional losses described above relates to the former DSCC. When OxyChem acquired DSCC in 1986, Maxus agreed to indemnify OxyChem for a number of environmental sites, including the DASS. In June 2016, Maxus and several affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. In 2023, OxyChem recovered the majority of its remaining claims for indemnified costs from the proceeds of litigation brought by the Maxus Liquidating Trust. DIAMOND ALKALI SUPERFUND SITE The EPA has organized the DASS into four Operable Units (OUs) for evaluating, selecting and implementing remediation under CERCLA. OxyChem’s current activities in each OU are summarized below, many of which are performed on OxyChem’s behalf by Glenn Springs Holdings, Inc. OU1 – The Former Diamond Alkali Plant at 80-120 Lister Avenue in Newark: Maxus and its affiliates implemented an interim remedy of OU1 pursuant to a 1990 Consent Decree, for which OxyChem currently performs maintenance and monitoring. In September 2024, the EPA proposed a final remedy for OU1 for public comment. OU2 – The Lower 8.3 Miles of the Lower Passaic River: In March 2016, the EPA issued a ROD specifying remedial actions required for OU2. During the third quarter of 2016, and following Maxus’s bankruptcy filing, OxyChem and the EPA entered into an AOC to complete the design of the remedy selected in the ROD. In May 2024, the EPA approved OxyChem's remedial design for OU2. In June 2024, the EPA notified OxyChem that the work required by the AOC has been fully performed in accordance with its terms. In 2016, the EPA sent notice letters to approximately 100 parties notifying them that they were potentially responsible to pay the costs to implement the remedy in OU2. In June 2018, OxyChem filed a complaint under CERCLA in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against numerous potentially responsible parties seeking contribution and cost recovery of amounts incurred or to be incurred to comply with the AOC and the OU2 ROD, or to perform other remediation activities related to the DASS (2018 Contribution Action). The District Court has not adjudicated OxyChem’s relative share of responsibility for those costs. The EPA has estimated the cost to remediate OU2 to be approximately $1.4 billion. OU3 – Newark Bay Study Area, including Newark Bay and Portions of the Hackensack River, Arthur Kill, and Kill van Kull: Maxus and its affiliates initiated a remedial investigation and feasibility study of OU3 pursuant to a 2004 AOC which was amended in 2010. OxyChem is currently performing feasibility study activities in OU3. In September 2022, the EPA listed the Lower Hackensack River (LHR) on the NPL, and this listed site comprises several existing NPL sites along a portion of that river that flows into OU3. In January 2024, the EPA sent a general notice letter requesting that OxyChem and four other entities coordinate certain investigation activities at the LHR site. OU4 – The 17-mile Lower Passaic River Study Area, comprising OU2 and the Upper 9 Miles of the Lower Passaic River: In September 2021, the EPA issued a ROD selecting an interim remedy for the portion of OU4 that excludes OU2 and is located upstream from the Lister Avenue Plant site for which OxyChem inherited legal responsibility. The EPA has estimated the cost to remediate OU4 to be approximately $440 million. At this time, OxyChem's role or responsibilities under the OU4 ROD, and those of other potentially responsible parties, have not been adjudicated. To provide continued, efficient remediation progress, in January 2022, OxyChem offered to design and implement the interim remedy for OU4 subject to certain conditions, including a condition that the EPA would not seek to bar OxyChem’s right to seek contribution or cost recovery from any other parties that are potentially responsible to pay for the OU4 interim remedy. In March 2022, the EPA sent a notice letter to OxyChem and other parties requesting good faith offers to implement the selected remedies at OU2 and OU4. OxyChem submitted a good faith offer in June 2022, reaffirming the offer to design the remedy for OU4 and offering to enter into additional sequential agreements to remediate OU2 and OU4, subject to similar conditions, including that the EPA not seek to bar OxyChem from pursuing contribution or cost recovery from other responsible parties. The EPA did not accept OxyChem's June 2022 offer. In March 2023, the EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order (OU4 UAO) in which it directed and ordered OxyChem to design the EPA’s selected interim remedy for OU4 and to provide approximately $93 million in financial assurance to secure its performance. Subject to all its defenses, OxyChem is designing the interim remedy in compliance with the OU4 UAO. Because OxyChem is incurring costs to implement the OU4 UAO, and the EPA is proposing to bar OxyChem's contribution claims against various parties as part of the Alden Leeds litigation described below, including those asserted in the 2018 Contribution Action, OxyChem filed a cost recovery action under CERCLA in March 2023 in the District Court against multiple parties (2023 Cost Recovery Action). Natural Resource Trustees – In addition to the activities of the EPA and OxyChem in the OUs described above, federal and state natural resource trustees are assessing natural resources in the Lower Passaic River and Greater Newark Bay to evaluate potential claims for natural resource damages. ALDEN LEEDS LITIGATION In December 2022, the EPA and the DOJ filed a proposed Consent Decree in the Alden Leeds litigation seeking court approval to settle with 85 parties for a total of $150 million with no requirement that the settling parties perform remediation work. OxyChem believes the proposed settlement is based on an unauthorized, flawed and disproportionate allocation of responsibility and would inappropriately release settling companies from liability to the United States for remediation costs in DASS OU2 and OU4. OxyChem also believes it would bar OxyChem from pursuing contribution against those parties for remediation costs OxyChem had incurred or may incur in the future to design and implement the remedies in OU2 and OU4, including claims OxyChem asserted in the 2018 Contribution Action. The proposed settlement does not address the liability of entities that were excluded from the settlement for the DASS, including OU2, OU3, OU4 or natural resource damages, or the liability of any settling party with respect to OU3 or natural resource damages. The proposed settlement was subject to a public comment period that closed in March 2023. In January 2024, the DOJ filed a proposed Amended Consent Decree in which it excluded three companies from the proposed settlement, among other changes, followed by a motion to approve the Amended Consent Decree. OxyChem believes the proposed settlement and Amended Consent Decree rely, improperly, on an allocation report prepared by an EPA contractor in which the contractor purported to assign a disproportionate share of the responsibility for remediation costs in OU2 and OU4 to OxyChem. OxyChem also believes that this process was unreasonably limited in scope and unreliably based on voluntary reporting by the settling parties, instead of sworn evidence, publicly available sampling results and historical documents reflecting the operating history and disposal practices of the 82 parties that the EPA proposes to release in this settlement. OxyChem intends to challenge vigorously the proposed settlement and Amended Consent Decree, as well as the allocation report and process upon which they are based, and to seek contribution and cost recovery from other potentially responsible parties for remediation costs it has incurred or may incur at the DASS. OxyChem filed its response to the motion to approve the Amended Consent Decree in April 2024, to which other parties filed replies in May 2024. OxyChem does not know when the District Court will rule on the DOJ’s motion to approve the Amended Consent Decree. If the Amended Consent Decree is approved by the District Court and not overturned on appeal, then, notwithstanding OxyChem’s vigorous, good faith effort to contest the settlement proposed in the Alden Leeds litigation, the EPA could attempt to compel OxyChem to bear substantially all the estimated cost to design and implement the OU2 and OU4 remedies. Such a result could have a material adverse impact on OxyChem and Occidental’s consolidated results of operations in the period recorded. While the remedies for OU2 and OU4 are expected to take over ten years to complete, the EPA may seek to require OxyChem to provide additional financial assurance. In the OU4 UAO, the EPA directed OxyChem to post financial assurance of approximately $93 million. Subject to all defenses, OxyChem has complied with this directive. The amount of any additional financial assurance is not subject to estimation at this time. It is uncertain when or to what extent the EPA may take action to compel OxyChem to perform further remediation in OU2 or OU4 or the amount of financial assurance the EPA may attempt to require OxyChem to post. For further information on the Alden Leeds litigation, see Note 9 - Lawsuits, Claims, Commitments and Contingencies. OTHER INFORMATION For the DASS, OxyChem has accrued a reserve relating to its estimated allocable share of the costs to perform the maintenance and monitoring required in the OU1 Consent Decree, the design and implementation of remedies selected in the OU2 ROD and AOC and the OU4 ROD and OU4 UAO, and the remedial investigation and feasibility study required in OU3. OxyChem’s accrued environmental remediation reserve does not reflect the potential for additional remediation costs or natural resource damages for the DASS that OxyChem believes are not reasonably estimable. OxyChem’s ultimate liability at the DASS may be higher or lower than the reserved amount and the reasonably possible additional losses, and is subject to final design plans, further action by the EPA and natural resource trustees, and the resolution of OxyChem's allocable share with other potentially responsible parties, among other factors. OxyChem continues to evaluate the estimated costs currently recorded for remediation at the DASS as well as the range of reasonably possible additional losses beyond those amounts currently recorded. Given the complexity and extent of the remediation efforts, estimates of the remediation costs may increase or decrease over time as new information becomes available.

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