Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has put ConocoPhillips on the shelf and picked up $3.7 billion worth of Exxon Mobil Corp. instead as Warren Buffett’s company disclosed its largest new holding since International Business Machines Corp. in 2011.

Buffett’s company owned 40.1 million shares of Exxon on Sept. 30, Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire said in a Nov. 14 regulatory filing. By market value the world’s biggest oil company, Exxon rose 0.9% to $94.07 in extended trading in New York after the disclosure.

Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and chief executive officer for more than four decades, has had successes and blunders betting on energy. He booked profits in 2007 as he sold stock in PetroChina Co. after the shares rose more than eightfold since a 2003 investment of $488 million.

However, in 2009, Berkshire posted its worst quarterly loss in at least two decades, fueled by a charge on the decline of oil producer ConocoPhillips. Buffett said he made a major mistake investing in the company with oil prices near their peak.

Berkshire cut its stake in ConocoPhillips by 44% in the three months ended Sept. 30 to 13.5 million shares, Nov. 14’s filing showed.

Berkshire has benefited this year as its stock picks rallied along with the broader market, affirming a strategy of favoring equities instead of bonds amid near record-low interest rates. Buffett, 83, has tracked Exxon and bought its stock in the past, holding a stake in the Irving, Texas-based energy producer as recently as 2011.

Exxon Mobil “is undervalued, in his opinion, and pretty much being ignored by the market,” said David Kass, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business who has taken students to meet Buffett in Omaha. “He knows the company. He knows it well.”

Exxon had advanced 7.7% this year through Nov. 14’s close in New York, trailing the 26% surge in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Buffett could have been drawn to Exxon because he hasn’t been able to find a big acquisition recently, causing cash to accumulate at his company, Kass said. The investment also could be beneficial if it’s still in the portfolio after Buffett’s no longer leading the company.

Stock in the energy company “certainly does a lot better than sitting in U.S. Treasury bills,” Kass said. “This is a conservative, safe stock -- a nice position for whenever a successor takes over.”

Other big name investors have made recent energy moves. T. Boone Pickens sold holdings in 25 companies including Apache Corp., as he reduced the value of his energy hedge fund by $41.8 million in the third quarter.

Pickens’s Dallas-based BP Capital Management LP sold shares of oil and gas producer Apache valued at $9.59 million and shares of Whiting Petroleum Corp. valued at $6.89 million.

Pickens added new stakes worth $15.2 million in four companies, with the largest investment in Exxon Mobil Corp. at $6.45 million.

Buffett's BP Capital’s top four holdings by market value are oil and gas producers. They are Exxon, Pioneer Natural Resources, Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Gulfport Energy Corp. Pickens retains stakes in producers including EOG Resources Inc. and Gastar Exploration Inc.

About three-quarters of the Exxon holding was added in the three months ended June 30, according to a separate filing. Berkshire requested confidential treatment in an August document detailing its portfolio at the end of the second quarter. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sometimes allows companies to withhold information from the public to limit copycat investing.

Exxon boosted oil and natural-gas production by 1.5% during the third quarter, reversing a two-year stretch of output declines. Net income for the period dropped by 18% to $7.87 billion as rising crude prices that benefited the company’s oil-production business squeezed margins at Exxon’s refineries.

Brent crude futures traded in London, the benchmark price for more than half the world’s oil, have averaged $108.48 a barrel this year. Although that’s down 2.9% from the 2012 average, it’s still almost twice as much as the 2001-2010 average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Buffett disclosed two years ago that he had spent more than $10 billion accumulating shares of IBM. Buffett calls Berkshire’s investments in the computer-services company, Coca- Cola Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and American Express Co. his “big four.” Each is valued at more than $10 billion.

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