Global Oil & Gas: BP Chief Dudley’s 2017 Pay Rises After Previous Year’s Cut

LONDON, March 29 (Reuters) – BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley’s remuneration rose to $13.4 million in 2017, when the oil and gas giant’s profits more than doubled and production soared.

Dudley’s salary was up 13 percent from 2016, when his pay package was cut by 40 percent after a majority of shareholders opposed the company’s pay policy.

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden saw his total remuneration in 2017 rise to 8.9 million euros ($11 million) from 8.6 million euros the previous year.

“2017 was a year which saw delivery and growth across all our businesses. This was an impressive performance from Bob Dudley and his great team, now fully into their stride,” BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said in a statement.

Dudley, 61, took the helm of BP in 2010, months after a deadly spill on the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has since paid more than $65 billion in clean-up costs, fines and lawsuits, some of which are still ongoing.

After selling oil and gas fields, refineries and other assets since the spill, 2017 marked one of the strongest years of growth in BP’s history after it launched 7 new projects.

It plans to start six additional fields this year, which will help it boost its production by 900,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) by 2021. BP’s production rose 12 percent in 2017 to 2.47 million boed.

BP’s current pay policy, which applies until 2019, includes lowering Dudley’s maximum long-term payout to five times salary from seven times and cutting bonus payments by a quarter.

($1 = 0.8118 euros) (Reporting by Ron Bousso Editing by Alexander Smith)