Pioneer Natural Resources Co. Chief Executive Officer Scott Sheffield is capping a storied career — defined by a decades-long bet on shale that bucked the oil industry’s conventional wisdom — with a massive payout.
The 71-year-old Sheffield, who has led Pioneer for more than 20 years, is in line to receive at least $151 million in mostly stock — and potentially more — from the sale to Exxon Mobil Corp. announced Wednesday, according to Pioneer’s 2023 proxy filing. That’s a payout that might have stunned Sheffield when he started in the industry as a young roughneck drilling vertical wells in the Permian Basin in 1979.
After moving from the field to the office, Sheffield rose to become president of Pioneer’s predecessor company in the 1980s. From that perch, he snapped up drilling rights in west Texas from Mobil Corp., Exxon Corp. and other major companies, eliciting yawns from Wall Street and energy experts who proclaimed the Permian Basin was past its oil-producing prime.
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