|
Oil Patch Insider
Payday fattens Canadian wallets; Colville gets new ownership
Back up the Brinks truck!
With their companies awash in the spoils of a year without parallel for the petroleum industry, the heads of Canadian firms feasted on salaries, bonuses and stock options in 2005.
Head of the parade was Precision Drilling Chairman Hank Swartout who collected nearly C$75 million, including C$19.8 million in salary and bonus, a five-fold increase on his 2004 take-home.
Add to that C$55 million from stock options from the company he started in 1985, turned into Canada’s largest drilling contractor worth C$4 billion, then converted into a trust in November.
The mix included C$2.9 million for retiring, although that won’t formally happen until later this year, and 12.9 million in special severance-like payments. Just for good measure he was allowed to buy his C$74,000 company-bought vehicle for C$1.
In 2004, Swartout cashed in almost C$10 million in stock options, while pocketing a salary of C$831,000 and a C$3.2 million bonus.
Other chief executive officers exercised more than C$100 million in stock options in 2005.Talisman Energy boss Jim Buckee collected more than C$20 million after exercising 500,000 options, while EnCana’s Gwyn Morgan, who stepped down as chief executive officer on Dec. 31, earned C$18.2 million, including C$12 million from options.
Morgan’s successor, Randy Eresman, made C$11.8 million, of which C$8 million came from cashing in options.
Canadian Natural Resources President Steve Laut earned a salary of C$408,173, a bonus of C$306,411, C$750,000 to buy company stock and 150,000 stock options at a price of C$33.38 (about half what the shares are currently worth).
Enbridge President Patrick Daniel collected C$2.5 million for heading up Canada’s second largest pipeline company.
—Gary Park
Colville companies get new owner, management As of May 31, 2006, Mark H. Helmericks will acquire 100 percent ownership of the Colville group of companies, William D. “Doug” Clinton, vice president of Colville Inc. said in an April 10 press release.
Colville companies include Colville Inc., a bulk and retail fuel supplier; Brooks Range Supply, a major industrial hardware supply store on the North Slope; Colville Solid Waste Services, a certificated utility for recycling and waste management; and the Prudhoe Bay General Store.
Palmer operations will no longer part of Colville, a company representative said.
Helmericks, president of Colville from 1982-2002, is returning after a three-year stint in Washington, D.C.
“I am delighted to be back in Alaska,” he said.
Raised on a homestead near Nuiqsut, Helmericks is the state’s first Alaska-born Rhodes Scholar. He holds a Bachelor of Science in geology from Harvard and a Masters in economics from Oxford.
Clinton, a 32-year Alaskan and retired U.S. Air Force colonel, returns to Colville following recent work as a senior program manager for an Alaska Native corporation in Washington, D.C. In addition to his career as a military pilot and Wing Commander of the Air National Guard aerial refueling wing at Eielson Air Force Base, Clinton has worked in Prudhoe as Colville’s health, safety, and environmental manager.
Joining Helmericks and Clinton at Colville are former General Manager Rick Hofreiter, and managers Lyle Winter, Gary Cooper, Rhonda Kutzner, Mike Kunkel and Rob Peterson.
| 