Oil Search board keeps travel allowance

Rear Window
Joe Aston has a report in today's Fin Review about the board keeping their travel allowance despite not being able to travel.

Oil Search is holding its AGM on April 30 at Sydney’s Fullerton Hotel. Resolutions being put to the meeting include one for a “temporary increase to the maximum number of directors” from nine to 10.

Perusing Oil Search’s 2020 annual report, we were particularly struck by the travel allowances paid to members of the board. In addition to base fees of $190,000 and around $57,000 for board committee memberships, “each Australian and PNG based non-executive director also receives a travel allowance of $35,000 per annum to compensate for the time spent travelling to PNG and Australia to attend board and committee meetings and for time spent on field trips to the company’s operations. Non-executive directors based further afield receive a travel allowance of $45,000 per annum”.

“Whilst directors were unable to travel for much of 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” they kept their travel allowances anyway. Of course they did.