These moves to compensate the top executives at the company are pretty standard moves by big business to make sure everyone involved at the top receives the most money available before the bankruptcy judges and workers’ claims begin to eat away at what is left of their business.



Whiting’s bankruptcy filing comes as oil and shale has taken a hit over the past few weeks, in part due to a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. The other part is the fact that Whiting spent about $6 billion purchasing Kodiak Oil & Gas in 2014, which included $2 billion of Kodiak’s debt, and then watched shale crash the following year.

Not surprisingly, the “drilling boom” the oil and shale industry enjoyed with the advent of the Trump administration has not amounted to a more robust oil industry. This is not a bug but a feature. When deregulation is afoot, the name of the game is to make as much money as possible and then move on to the next place. The only rule is to not to get caught in the burning building of your now former company.

Whiting was in the news a few years ago after the largest oil workers strike in decades that began over the company’s terrible safety standards became intolerable to their labor force.