Oxy CEO’s Pay Totals $49 Million

Occidental Petroleum Corp. paid Chief Executive Ray Irani more than $49 million in cash, stock and other compensation in 2005, a nearly 60% increase that reflects a boost in the executive’s restricted stock awards.

The Westwood-based company, a producer of oil and natural gas, kept Irani’s salary flat for the year at $1.3 million but added an 8% higher bonus of $3.6 million as a reward for meeting performance goals, Oxy said in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Company earnings more than doubled to $5.3 billion in 2005, a year when higher prices for oil and natural gas boosted industry profits. During the year, Oxy’s stock price rose 37% to end 2005 at $79.88; it has gained 18% this year to its Thursday close of $94.11.

Irani’s other 2005 compensation included $1.5 million in director fees, retirement benefits and interest on deferred pay; $10.6 million in long-term incentive payouts; and $1.1 million in “other annual compensation.� The “other annual� pay figure is more than double the 2004 amount, but it included $567,000 in security costs that were accounted for elsewhere in prior years.

His biggest increase was in restricted stock awards, which totaled $31 million in 2005, an 83% boost from the previous year.

In addition to his compensation, Irani pocketed $37.6 million from exercising stock options in 2005.

The Corporate Library, a shareholder watchdog group, gave Occidental’s 2004 pay packages an F rating, calling them excessive. The group hasn’t assigned a 2005 rating yet.

“It certainly hasn’t improved,� Paul Hodgson, the group’s senior research associate, said Thursday after reviewing Oxy’s new report.

“They outperformed everybody else,� he said, but “it’s a matter of scale.�