Barclays conducted a comparative review of compensation structures and board composition at seven large U.S. energy service companies, examining proxy statements from a peak cycle year (2013), a trough cycle year (2019) and the current emerging cycle period (2024-2025).
The firms covered in the study were SLB, HAL, BKR, WFRD, NOV, FTI and HP. The bank focused on how short-term incentive metrics and board membership patterns shifted across industry cycles and over the 12-year span.
Short-term pay metrics and performance outcomes
Barclays found that short-term compensation targets remain closely aligned with the upstream spending cycle. In the 2024-2025 period, EBITDA and EBIT emerged as the most common metrics, together accounting for a 34% relative weighting across the group. Free cash flow represented 23% of the weighting in 2025. Both of those financial measures are directly correlated with upstream capital spending trends.
Performance against financial targets weakened in 2025 relative to 2024. Only 38% of financial targets were met in 2025, down from 67% in 2024, a reflection of another flat year for the industry. Despite the lower overall achievement rate, four of the seven companies still paid out 100% or more of their short-term compensation targets.
ESG weightings and metric examples
Environmental, social and governance metrics have grown in importance as a component of short-term pay. Barclays reported ESG accounted for 11% of compensation weighting in 2025, up from 3% in 2013, making ESG the third largest component of incentive programs in the latest period reviewed. The ESG metrics cited in the study include efforts to reduce scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions, a target of 25% women in the global workforce, increasing electric fracturing fleets by more than 9%, and achieving zero workplace fatalities.
The bank also noted a shift in the primary financial metric used in incentives: free cash flow has replaced earnings per share as a key financial target since 2013.
Payout leaders and laggards
Across the 2024-2025 period, FTI, BKR and HP recorded the highest incentive payouts, exceeding 100% of target. Halliburton recorded the lowest payouts across the 15-year window Barclays reviewed, including 0% payouts in both 2013 and 2019.
Board composition and turnover
Board tenure varied materially across the sample. NOV reported four of nine board members with more than 20 years of service, while Halliburton had three of eight members with service longer than 13 years. SLB experienced 100% board turnover since 2013, and WFRD also reached full turnover following a restructuring. By contrast, HP and NOV displayed the lowest turnover rates in the group, at 40% and 44% respectively.
The Barclays review provides a cross-sectional look at how compensation design and governance practices have evolved across market cycles for major energy service providers. It highlights an ongoing linkage between pay and upstream spending, a growing role for ESG in incentive frameworks, and divergent approaches to board succession.