Exxon’s boss pay rose 52% to nearly US$35.9M last year

Exxon’s boss pay rose 52% to nearly US$35.9M last year – The Guardian

Apr 14, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of American oil giant, ExxonMobil was handed a 52 percent pay increase to US$35.9 million for 2022, after the oil company reported its highest profits ever amid the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which sent oil prices soaring.

The Guardian reported on Thursday, that Darren Woods’ salary rose by 10 percent to US$1.9 million last year while his bonus and share awards surged by 80 percent compared with the year before. The company said the bumper payday was “reflective of record company earnings and stock price performance”.

ExxonMobil made US$56 billion in profits, or US$6.3 million an hour, last year after the war in Ukraine ignited a surge in global oil and gas prices. The company’s record profit was also the highest reported by any western oil company.

ExxonMobil’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Darren Woods (Getty images)

In an official company filing, Exxon’s remuneration committee said that under Wood’s leadership the company had “delivered exceptional business results”. Meanwhile, the company’s share price outpaced its industry rivals last year after climbing by 160 percent.

Its main US rival, Chevron, had a record US$36.5 billion profit, while the European oil company Shell announced the biggest profits in its 115-year history, at US$39.9 billion, and BP reported a US$27.7 billion profit.

The news agency also said that the oil industry’s outsized profits were criticised as “outrageous” by the United States President, Joe Biden, during his State of the Union address in February. Biden has previously accused Exxon of making “more money than God”.

In the UK oil industry profits stoked public anger, leading to calls for a windfall tax on companies that had profited from the surge in global energy market prices as a result of the war in Ukraine.

In May 2022, the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced an “energy profits levy” against oil company profits to help support households struggling with their energy bills. The current chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, later toughened the windfall tax as part of his autumn statement in November but faced renewed calls to adapt it after the announcement of bumper earnings from BP and Shell earlier this year.

In December 2022, Kaieteur News had reported that the US-oil major announced that Woods and other executives will be benefiting from an increase on their annual base salaries. This announcement came after it was reported in the media that the company’s British employees had taken to the streets protesting more than the ‘pitiful’ 2.5 percent increase.

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Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Darren Woods, ExxonMobil, remuneration, Russia

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