Occidental Petroleum Chief to Stay Until End of 2014 Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum's Goldsmith field in the Permian Basin in Texas. The company's board said the chief would remain. The oil and gas company has suffered through a prolonged boardroom fight between Mr. Chazen and Ray R. Irani, the company's longtime chairman, who some had speculated wished to return as chief executive. The Los Angeles-based company's share price has lagged other major oil companies in recent years, because of disappointing results in California, cost overruns and slumping natural gas prices. Shares rose about 1 percent on the announcement at midday. They closed the day up $1.20, or 1.38 percent, at $87.86. The annual shareholder's meeting, scheduled for Friday, had been expected to be sharply divisive as the board tried to persuade investors to support its February decision to replace Mr. Chazen, who had indicated he did not want to leave. Some influential shareholders wanted Mr. Chazen to remain, while lobbying to remove Mr. Irani, who is 78. Among other decisions the board made were barring Mr. Irani from returning to his old post of chief executive, cutting the pay for board members and adding two new directors. It also set a mandatory retirement age of 68 for the chief executive; Mr. Chazen is 66. Not all Wall Street analysts were impressed by the board's announcements. "It's a truce but not peace," said Fadel Gheit, a senior oil company analyst at Oppenheimer & Company. At the end of the day it was a stalemate. There is still a lack of strategic clarity where this company is heading. They need a new skipper, a new crew and a new strategy. Mr. Irani, who was chief executive for two decades, and Mr. Chazen, who took the post only two years ago, had long been at loggerheads over the company's direction. Mr. Irani favored pushing the company's operations in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iraq, while Mr. Chazen preferred focusing on domestic operations in California, North Dakota and Texas. In a statement released by the company, Mr. Chazen said: "Today's announcement is consistent with my personal plans. The board and I have discussed the importance of identifying new leadership for the next decade. I support the board and its efforts to move forward on succession and corporate governance issues. The company statement said that Mr. Irani would be replaced by an independent director, but it did not say when the succession would occur. He had been scheduled to retire in 2014. The statement also quoted Margaret Foran, a company director, as saying the policy changes came "after carefully evaluating all of the suggestions and feedback we received from shareholders." Important investors like the California State Teachers" Retirement System had come out in favor of Mr. Chazen. Some have suggested that Occidental Petroleum, the fourth-largest United States oil and gas company after Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, should spin off some of its operations or move some units into master limited partnerships to improve shareholder returns.