Babatunde Cole is President and General Manager of the Delaware Basin Business Unit at Occidental Petroleum, where he led the development and production of unconventional reservoirs across Texas and New Mexico. In this role, Babatunde was accountable for driving operational excellence, optimizing capital efficiency, and accelerating growth across some of the company’s most strategic assets in the Permian Basin.

With two decades of experience spanning the upstream oil and gas value chain, Babatunde brings a deep understanding of reservoir characterization, development planning, and production operations across diverse resource plays including heavy oil, tight oil and gas, and conventional reservoir systems. His leadership has been instrumental in improving asset performance, integrating new technologies, and advancing Occidental’s efforts to operate safely and sustainably.

Since joining Occidental in 2012, Babatunde has held a range of technical and leadership roles supporting the company’s U.S. upstream operations. Before that, he spent the early part of his career with Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil in Canada, where he held positions of increasing responsibility in both onshore and offshore reservoir engineering. These experiences provided a strong foundation in subsurface evaluation, project execution, and integrated leadership across disciplines in multiple geographies and asset types.

Babatunde holds dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science from Western University in Ontario, and a Master of Science in Finance from the University of Houston. His combination of technical depth and financial acumen enables him to connect engineering expertise with strategic business insight, guiding teams to achieve measurable results and long-term value.