Schlumberger CEO Gets $20.8 Million Pay as Oil Markets Rebound

(Bloomberg) -- Schlumberger Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Paal Kibsgaard received $20.8 million in reported pay for 2017, a 12 percent boost from the prior year as the global oil market rebounded.

The world’s biggest oilfield services provider reported the pay increase on Friday, almost two months after telling investors that the market is finally improving. The contractors of the oil patch, which are hired to drill and frack wells, were among the worst hit during the three-year crude-market crash, having slashed hundreds of thousands of jobs and incurring massive losses. 

Kibsgaard’s pay included a $2 million salary, a cash bonus of $4.28 million and $12 million in performance shares, according to a filing. This was the first year the reported disclosure shows the 50-year-old didn’t receive option grants, which were eliminated after investor feedback. The change means his equity compensation is tied more closely to the company’s strategy than market performance.

The pay increase came from an above-target payout for his cash bonus at 214 percent of his base salary. The bonus was dependent on earnings-per-share goals. In the prior year, he received 80 percent of his target bonus.

The Philadelphia Oil Services Index lost 19 percent, closing 2017 at its lowest end-of-year level since 2008. Oil explorers could boost international spending by as much as 8 percent this year, according to BMO Capital Markets. That’s good news for Schlumberger, which generates most of its sales outside the U.S. and Canada.

Schlumberger also reported that the CEO made 234 times more than the median employee’s $88,604. The pay ratio included employees from 135 countries.

--With assistance from Jenn Zhao

To contact the reporters on this story: Alicia Ritcey in New York at aritcey@bloomberg.net, David Wethe in Houston at dwethe@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum

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