D1 Oils has revealed that boardroom salaries rose 22% last year as the loss-making jatropha group counted the cost of a management shake-up.

The London-based company said it paid nearly £350,000 in termination payments in 2008 to outgoing directors including Elliott Mannis, who quit as chief executive, and Lord Oxburgh, the former Shell UK boss, who left D1 during a reshuffle in December.

Other directors who stepped down last year included Karl Watkin, who resigned in March 2008, criticising both the London Stock Exchange for a "failure to address" liquidity issues at its junior Aim market, and the "so-called experts on climate change who fail to distinguish between jatropha and other non-sustainable biodiesel feedstocks".

Mr Watkin, D1's founder, retains a 2.1% stake in the group, which last year racked up its sixth successive annual loss.

'Compromise' deal

The group's total bill for directors' pay, excuding awards of share options, rose to £1.19m last year from £971,500 in 2007.

D1's total salary bill more than doubled to £2.61m from £1.08m even though its employees shrank from 154 at the start of the year to less than 100 by the end.

Mr Mannis received the lion's share of the directors' pay-offs, more than doubling his total pay from the group to £555,000 from £266,400 a year before.

Last year's figure included a £46,000 injection into his pension plan in a "compromise" agreement for not giving paying him off in full for his notice period.