Occidental Petroleum cuts CEO’s pay despite bigger oil profit
Occidental Petroleum Corp. reaped a bigger profit in 2011 — and the energy company reduced its new chief executive’s compensation.
Stephen I. Chazen, who took over the chief executive job in May from Ray R. Irani, received a compensation package worth $31.7 million last year, compared with $38.1 million in 2010 when he was president, the Westwood energy company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday.
After years of shareholder criticism about how much Occidental paid its top officers, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company decided in 2010 to change how it determined executives’ payout to make it more difficult to receive maximum compensation.
Chazen’s compensation in 2011 included a salary of $1.27 million, a $1.34-million bonus and $28.6 million in cash and stock awards.
Irani’s 2010 compensation of $76.1 million made him the highest-paid chief executive in the energy industry as well as the top-earning CEO in California. In 2011, Executive Chairman Irani received $49.8 million in total compensation.
Occidental earned $6.8 billion last year on revenue of $24 billion, compared with 2010 net income of $4.5 billion on revenue of $19 billion.
Its shares declined $3.54, or 3.5%, to $97.96 on Tuesday.
