IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING THE AVAILABILITY OF PROXY MATERIALS FOR THE STOCKHOLDER MEETING TO BE HELD ON MAY 22, 2018.

This Notice of Meeting, Proxy Statement and the 2017 Annual Report on Form 10-K are available without cost at https://materials.proxyvote.com/868157

Our Board is responsible for oversight of our management, providing strategic direction and establishing broad corporate policies. In addition, our Board addresses the Company’s organizational needs, strategically manages its growth, navigates competitive challenges, ensures succession and appropriately manages risks.

Board Structure

Our Board is composed of eight board members and is led by an independent director. Mr. Funk currently serves as our Lead Director. A majority of our directors are “independent” within the meaning of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing standards. Our Board has also affirmatively determined that each member of our standing committees (the Audit Committee, Compensation Committee and Corporate Governance Committee) has no material relationship with the Company and satisfies the independence criteria (including the enhanced criteria applicable to audit and compensation committees) set forth in the NYSE listing standards and SEC rules.

Our Board takes a flexible approach to the issue of whether the offices of Chairman and CEO should be separate or combined, considering the tenure and experience of the CEO and operating environment of the Company, allowing for regular evaluation as to which structure will best serve the Company. Currently, the role of Chairman and CEO is separate. Our Board determined that the separation of the Chairman and CEO roles would maximize management’s efficiency by allowing our CEO to focus on our day-to-day business, while allowing the Chairman to lead our Board in its fundamental role of providing guidance to and oversight of management.

Election of Directors

Our Corporate Governance Principles provide that in a director election where the only director nominees are those nominated by our Board, if a director nominee receives a greater number of withheld votes during an election than “FOR” the director (a “majority of withheld vote”), then the nominee is required to tender his or her resignation after certification of the stockholder vote for consideration by the Corporate

Governance Committee. The Corporate Governance Committee will consider the resignation and recommend to our Board whether to accept it or take other action, including rejecting the tendered resignation and addressing the apparent underlying cause of the majority withheld vote.

In making its recommendation, the Corporate Governance Committee will consider all factors deemed relevant by its members, including without limitation (i) the underlying cause of the majority withheld vote (if it can be determined), (ii) the length of service and qualifications of the director whose resignation has been tendered, (iii) the director’s contributions to the Company, (iv) the current mix of skills and attributes of directors on our Board, (v) whether, by accepting the resignation, the Company will no longer be in compliance with any applicable law, rule, regulation or governing document and (vi) whether or not accepting the resignation is in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders.

Our Board will act on the Corporate Governance Committee’s recommendation at its first regularly scheduled meeting following certification of the stockholder vote, or within 120 days after the certification if a regular board meeting is not scheduled within that time. Our Board will consider the same criteria as the Corporate Governance Committee, as well as any additional information and factors it believes are relevant and will disclose its decision in a report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Our Board annually elects a non-management Lead Director who has been recommended by the Corporate Governance Committee. The Lead Director:

Our Board believes that the foregoing leadership structure and polices strengthen board leadership,

foster cohesive decision-making at the board level, solidify director collegiality, improve problem solving and enhance strategy formulation and implementation.

Meeting Attendance

Our Board has adopted a policy that recommends that all directors personally attend each annual meeting of stockholders. All of our directors attended our 2017 annual meeting of stockholders.

In 2017, each of our directors attended 100% of our Board meetings and 100% of the meetings of any committees of which the director was a member.

Board Committees and Risk Oversight

We do not view risk in isolation, but consider risk as part of our regular evaluation of business strategy and business decisions. Assessing and managing risk is the responsibility of the Company’s management, which establishes and maintains risk management processes, including action plans and controls, to balance risk mitigation and opportunities to create stockholder value. It is management’s responsibility to anticipate, identify and communicate risks to the Board and its committees. The Board oversees and reviews certain aspects of the Company’s risk management efforts, either directly or through its committees.

While the Board has primary responsibility for oversight of the Company’s risk management, the Board’s standing committees support the Board by regularly addressing various risks in their respective areas of oversight. Our Board’s three standing

committees, the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee and the Corporate Governance Committee serve as pillars to the Board’s oversight. The Audit Committee maintains responsibility related to our financial reporting, audit process and internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. The Compensation Committee endeavors to develop a program of incentives that encourages an appropriate level of risk-taking behavior consistent with our long-term business strategy and also reviews the leadership development of our employees. The Corporate Governance Committee conducts assessments of nominees to our Board and is charged with developing and recommending to our Board any policies, corporate governance principles and the structure, leadership and membership of our Board committees, including those policies and principles related to, affecting or concerning risk oversight of our Board and its committees. These committees regularly report back to the full Board the risk management controls implemented by the management team in their areas of oversight and liaise regularly with the Chairman and Lead Director. In addition, our management identifies, assesses and manages the Company’s risk through an Enterprise Risk Management Program (ERM Program). The ERM Program annually identifies the key risks facing the Company, implements policies, processes and controls to manage the risks and monitors and audits the initiatives. Our management meets regularly to discuss our business strategies, challenges, identified risks and opportunities and management reviews those items with our Board at each regularly scheduled meeting.

Each of our Board’s standing committees has adopted a written charter that has been approved by our Board. Copies of these charters, as well as copies of our Corporate Governance Principles, are available in the Corporate Governance section of our website at www.superiorenergy.com and are available in print upon request to our Secretary at Superior Energy Services, Inc., 1001 Louisiana Street, Suite 2900, Houston, Texas 77002.

Compensation Committee

Since May 2007, the Compensation Committee has engaged Pearl Meyer & Partners (Pearl Meyer), an independent compensation consultant, to advise the Compensation Committee on matters relating to executive compensation and assist it in maintaining and administering our executive compensation programs. The Compensation Committee annually requests Pearl Meyer to conduct an executive compensation review to evaluate the compensation of our senior executives relative to an industry peer group selected by the Compensation Committee with input from the compensation consultant and management and published market survey data. See “Executive Compensation—Compensation Discussion and Analysis—How We Make Compensation Decisions—Compensation Consultant’s Role” herein for more information.

Our stock incentive plan permits the Compensation Committee to delegate to appropriate personnel its authority to make awards to employees other than officers and directors subject to Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act). The Compensation Committee has delegated authority to our CEO to make or alter awards under our long-term

incentive plan to participants (other than himself), subject to the following conditions:

Director Nominee Qualifications

The Corporate Governance Committee is responsible for reviewing with our Board, on an annual basis, the appropriate skills and characteristics required of directors in accordance with our Corporate Governance Principles and evaluating whether the current members of our Board as a group possess those skills and characteristics. Our Corporate Governance Principles provide that our Board will nominate director candidates who represent a mix of backgrounds and experiences that enhance the quality of our Board’s deliberations and decisions. Our

Board believes that a diverse membership with varying perspectives and breadth of experience is an important attribute of a well-functioning board. As a result, our Board will seek diversity of background, experience, gender, race and skills among its members.

When seeking new candidates for director, the Corporate Governance Committee will identify potential director nominees through business and other contacts. The Corporate Governance Committee will also consider new candidates for director recommended by stockholders in accordance with the procedures described in our Bylaws and may also choose to retain a professional search firm to identify potential director nominees.

In recent years, we have not paid any fee to any third party to identify or evaluate, or assist in identifying or evaluating, potential director nominees for election at the annual meeting.

When the Corporate Governance Committee selects candidates, it is looking for director nominees:

Our Board is particularly interested in maintaining a mix that includes, but is not necessarily limited to, active or retired chief executive officers and senior executives, particularly those with significant management experience in operations, international business, finance, accounting, law or significant targeted expansion areas for the Company. The committee evaluates a potential director nominee by considering whether the potential candidate meets the expectations described above, as well as considering the following factors:

Nominations of a director by the stockholders using the process set forth in our Bylaws are evaluated the same way by the Corporate Governance Committee. See “2019 Stockholder Nominations and Proposals” for information on a stockholder proposing a candidate for consideration for nomination as a director, in accordance with our Bylaws and Corporate Governance Principles. We did not receive notice of director nominations from any stockholder for our annual meeting.

When reviewing an incumbent director for potential re-election, the Corporate Governance Committee considers the incumbent director’s role during his or her term, including the number of meetings attended, level of participation and overall contribution to our Board. As provided in our Corporate Governance Principles, a director is expected to retire at the annual meeting following his or her 75^th birthday, unless asked by our Board to continue to serve.

Role of our Board in Stockholder Outreach

As discussed more fully in the “Stockholder Outreach” section above, our Board believes in the importance of the Company engaging with our stockholders to gain feedback regarding our compensation and governance practices, to answer questions about the Company and to respond as appropriate to stockholder concerns. Our Board receives regular reports from our engagement team, summarizing the responses and viewpoints of our stockholders. Further, while senior management routinely engage with stockholders, the Board reviews and considers the degree of engagement and stockholder requests in order to determine whether direct Board member participation would be appropriate and beneficial. To that end, the Chair of our Compensation Committee has participated directly in discussions with certain of our largest stockholders to ensure a direct line of

communication. Our Board appreciates the time taken and responses provided by our stockholders and looks forward to continuing the outreach going forward.

Role of our Board in Succession Planning

Succession planning is a critical board function. Long-term succession planning involves assessing the Company’s business goals, determining the skills and experience necessary for future executives to help the Company achieve those goals and an open dialogue between the Board and management to assess talent and prepare for transition. Reviewing the Company’s leadership development and “bench strength” is a key component of analyzing internal potential for future executives. To that end, our Board is engaged in succession planning and management development activities, seeking input from members of our Board and senior management regarding candidates for potential successors to the CEO and other senior executives.

Director Stock Ownership Guidelines

Within three years of joining the Board, each non-management director is expected to own shares of our common stock equal in value to five times the annual retainer paid to him or her. All of our directors with at least three years of tenure on our Board exceed the required ownership level. See “Ownership

of Securities — Management and Director Stock Ownership.”

Communications with our Board

Stockholders and other interested parties may communicate directly with one or more members of our Board, or the non-management directors as a group, by sending a letter by mail c/o Secretary, Superior Energy Services, Inc., 1001 Louisiana Street, Suite 2900, Houston, Texas 77002. The Secretary will forward the communication directly to the appropriate director or directors.

Compensation Committee Interlocks and Insider Participation

During 2017, none of Messrs. Bouillion, Funk, McShane or Ralls (Chair), who comprised the Compensation Committee, were officers or employees of the Company or any of our subsidiaries or had any relationships requiring disclosure in this proxy statement under “Certain Transactions,” and none of our executive officers served as a member of the compensation committee of another entity or as a director of another entity whose executive officers served on our Board or the Compensation Committee. No member of the Compensation Committee is a former officer of the Company.

In 2017, directors maintained the 15% reduction of the annual retainer paid to non-management directors that was implemented in 2016 to show alignment with management. As a result, during 2017 our non-management directors received:

To better align the non-management directors’ compensation with the financial interests of our stockholders, an average of 64% of their compensation is paid in the form of restricted stock units (RSUs) with a grant date fair value of approximately $200,000. The RSUs are granted on the day following each annual meeting of our stockholders, with the number of RSUs granted determined by dividing $200,000 by the closing price of our common stock on the day of the annual meeting and rounding up to the next whole RSU. In addition, if

the director’s initial election or appointment does not occur at an annual meeting, then he or she will receive a pro rata number of RSUs based on the number of full calendar months between the date of election or appointment and the first anniversary of the previous annual meeting.

The RSUs vest and pay out in shares of our common stock on the date of the next year’s annual meeting, subject to the applicable director’s continued service through the date and further subject to each director’s ability to elect to defer receipt of the shares of our common stock under our Directors Deferred Compensation Plan.

Under our Directors Deferred Compensation Plan, non-management directors may elect to defer compensation received from the Company for service on our Board. Deferred cash compensation will earn a rate of return based on hypothetical investments in certain mutual funds from which the director may select, or may be converted to deferred RSUs. Any deferred RSUs will be paid out in shares of our common stock and will be credited with dividend equivalents for any dividends paid on our common stock. Director participants may elect the timing of the distributions of their deferred compensation, which may be made in a lump sum payment or installments, provided that all payments are made no later than 10 years following the director’s termination of service on our Board.

In accordance with Section 14A of the Exchange Act and the related rules of the SEC, our stockholders have the opportunity to cast an advisory, non-binding vote to approve, or not approve, on a non-binding advisory basis, the compensation paid to our NEOs and disclosed in the proxy statement for 2017. Although the vote is non-binding, our Board of Directors and Compensation Committee value the opinion of our stockholders, and will consider the outcome of the vote when making future compensation decisions for our NEOs.

The core of our executive compensation philosophy and practice continues to align real pay delivery with both performance and long-term stockholder returns. We believe our executive compensation program is strongly aligned with the long-term interests of our stockholders. In considering how to vote on this proposal, we urge you to read the Compensation Discussion and Analysis, the compensation tables and the narrative discussion set forth on pages 27 to 60 for additional details of our executive compensation program.

The Compensation Committee designs, implements and administers our executive compensation program. Our program is heavily performance-based, linking executive pay, Company performance and results for our stockholders. For our CEO, approximately 88% of his target direct compensation consists of annual and long term incentives that are heavily weighted towards variability depending upon our performance and long-term stockholder returns.

At last year’s annual meeting, we provided our stockholders with the opportunity to cast a non-binding advisory vote regarding the 2016 compensation of our NEOs. Showing strong support for our efforts to align compensation with results and stockholder returns,

our stockholders approved the 2017 say-on-pay proposal by an affirmative vote of 97.6% of the holders of shares of common stock present and entitled to vote on the proposal.

We are again asking our stockholders to vote on the following resolution:

RESOLVED, that the stockholders hereby approve, on a non-binding advisory basis, the compensation paid to the Company’s NEOs for 2017 as disclosed in this proxy statement, including in the Compensation Disclosure and Analysis, compensation tables and narrative disclosures.

We invite stockholders who wish to communicate with our Board on executive compensation matters or any other matter to contact us as provided under “Corporate Governance — Communications with our Board.” Additionally, the Company engages our larger stockholders at least annually to discuss both compensation and governance matters as discussed more fully in the “Stockholder Outreach” section of this proxy.

Vote Required

The affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the shares of our common stock present in person or by proxy at the annual meeting and entitled to vote is required to approve this proposal.

The Board has previously determined to hold say-on-pay advisory votes on an annual basis. Accordingly, unless the Board modifies its policy on the frequency of future say-on-pay advisory votes, we will hold our next “say-on-pay” vote at our 2019 annual meeting of stockholders.

The Audit Committee has selected KPMG as our independent registered public accounting firm (independent auditor) for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2018, which, as a matter of good corporate practice, we submit to our stockholders for ratification. If the selection is not ratified by our stockholders, the Audit Committee will consider whether it is appropriate to select another independent auditor. Even if the selection is ratified, the Audit Committee in its discretion may select a different independent auditor at any time during the year if it determines that a change would be in the best interests of the Company and our stockholders.

KPMG has audited the Company’s financial statements since 1995. The Audit Committee took a number of factors into consideration in determining whether to reappoint KPMG as the Company’s independent auditor, including KPMG’s historical and

recent performance of the Company’s audit, KPMG’s capabilities and expertise, its tenure as the Company’s independent auditor and its familiarity with our business and operations, the appropriateness of its professional fees and its independence.

Representatives of KPMG are expected to be present at the annual meeting and will have an opportunity to make a statement if they desire to do so. They will also be available to respond to appropriate questions from our stockholders.

Vote Required

The ratification of the appointment of KPMG as our independent auditor for 2018 requires the affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the shares of our common stock present in person or by proxy at the annual meeting and entitled to vote on the proposal.

Fees Paid to Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

The following is a summary and description of fees billed to the Company for professional services rendered by KPMG in 2017, 2016 and 2015.

Pre-Approval Process

The Audit Committee must pre-approve all audit and permissible non-audit services provided by the independent auditor and follows established approval procedures to ensure that the independent auditor’s independence will not be impaired. Regarding services requiring specific pre-approval, the Company’s Chief Financial Officer submits requests along with a joint statement from the independent auditor as to whether, in their view, the request for services is consistent with the SEC’s rules on auditor independence.

The Audit Committee delegated pre-approval authority for routine audit, audit-related and tax services specifically listed in the pre-approval policy to its chair for any individual service estimated to involve a fee of less than $75,000 and the chair reports any pre-approval decisions to the Audit Committee at its next scheduled meeting. The Audit Committee does not delegate to management its responsibility to pre-approve services to be performed by the Company’s independent auditor.

All audit and tax fees described above were approved by the Audit Committee before services were rendered.

A Note from Our Compensation Committee Chair

“Our operating environment is both highly cyclical and rapidly changing, making long-term forecasting difficult. The severe industry downturn from which we began to emerge in 2017 highlights the challenge we face balancing stockholder returns and executive compensation. Achieving this balance, which is one of our fundamental principles, requires that we continually evaluate pay levels and performance targets to reflect rapidly changing market conditions and outlook. People are the most important asset in our business and we believe they are the primary determinant of our success. A principal objective of our compensation program is to ensure our ability to attract and retain talented people who can steer us through these market cycles, and to align their compensation with both corporate performance and long-term stockholder returns.

We describe below how our compensation program heavily emphasizes variable incentive compensation that is at-risk and performance based. In crafting our 2017 program, we gave careful consideration to setting performance objectives that we thought were rigorous and would achieve balance in focusing management’s attention on both short and long term goals. Our focus in setting short-term goals was on generating cash and managing liquidity. To ensure alignment with our stockholders, the goal of our long-term incentives, which is by far the largest component of our compensation program, continued to be focused on both total stockholder return (TSR) and return on assets (ROA).

On behalf of the Committee, I want to assure our stockholders that we take our responsibilities very seriously. We appreciate your support and are confident that your management team is fully engaged in charting our path forward.”

-Matt Ralls

Chairman

Our 2017 Performance

We entered 2017 with a cautious view due to the challenges we’ve faced since the pronounced downturn began in late 2014. As the year progressed, our operating environment began to improve along with the increases in oil prices and domestic rig count. The steps we’ve taken throughout the downturn to reduce our cost structure, preserve liquidity and position ourselves for the upcycle served us well. Against a 73% increase in our domestic land revenues, our overall general and administrative (G&A) expense decreased by an additional $51 million, or 15%, following a 32% reduction in 2016. Since 2014, we’ve reduced our G&A by $328.9 million, or 53%. We also improved our worldwide days sales outstanding (DSO) to 72 days from 74 days in 2016, increased days payable outstanding (DPO) to 57 days from 50 in 2016 and preserved $172 million in cash on hand at year-end. Most importantly, we were able to preserve this cash level while increasing our capital expenditures by 105% to $165 million.

Our operating results improved throughout 2017, resulting in an approximate 350% increase in our earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and

amortization (EBITDA) to $179.9 million from $40.1 million in 2016. Our EBITDA increased significantly each quarter with approximately 75% of our 2017 EBITDA generated during the second half of the year.

Throughout 2017, we were keenly focused on improving our working capital position to support our increasing operational tempo and managing our balance sheet to maximize our liquidity and financial flexibility. We extended the maturity of our revolving credit facility to 2022 with a $300 million, asset-based revolving credit facility. We also refinanced our debt maturing in 2019 by issuing $500 million of 7  ³⁄₄% senior notes due 2024. As a result, we entered 2018 with no debt maturities until 2021.

Looking ahead, we remain optimistic that industry conditions will continue to improve in 2018. We know that the past few years have been challenging for our stockholders as we’ve worked our way through what may be the worst cyclical downturn our industry has ever experienced. The leaders of our businesses have proven incredibly adept at adapting, growing and changing throughout the downturn. We feel confident the steps we’ve taken have positioned us for growth as we pursue long-term stockholder value creation.

We strive to align executive compensation with stockholder interests, and to incorporate strong governance standards within our compensation program, such as:

Ø   75% of Long-Term Incentives are Performance-Based – During 2017, we continued our emphasis on performance based compensation with 75% of the grant date value of our long-term incentives being performance based.

Ø   Annual Incentives Based on Performance – Our AIP awards are based on Company financial and key operational performance measures.

Ø   Balanced Mix of Performance-Based Compensation – We have a balanced

compensation program that includes a mix of short- and long-term incentives with performance measures designed to motivate our executives to improve both our financial and stock-price performance and maintain alignment with both short and long-term objectives.

Ø   Anti-Hedging and Anti-Pledging Policies – We prohibit our executives and directors from hedging and pledging Company securities.

Ø   Broad-based Long-Term Incentive Program – We grant long-term incentive awards broadly within the Company. In 2017, we granted awards to 405 non-executive management employees in an effort to promote stock ownership and alignment with our stockholders’ interests.

Ø   “Double Trigger” Payments – Our change of control program for our executives provides for change of control cash severance payments only if a qualifying termination of employment occurs in connection with the change in control.

Ø   Clawback Policy – Our AIP and LTI awards are subject to a clawback policy, which applies to all of our executive officers and provides for the forfeiture of these awards or the return of any related gain in the event of a restatement of our financial statements.

Ø   No Excise Tax Gross-Ups – We do not provide excise tax gross-ups in any executive employment agreement or severance or change of control program.

Ø   Robust Stock Ownership Guidelines for CEO – We require our executive officers and directors to maintain significant levels of ownership in the Company in order to align their interests with our

stockholders’ interests. The ownership level for our CEO is six times his base salary.

Ø   Holding Requirement on Equity Shares – Our stock ownership guidelines require that our executives maintain ownership of at least 50% of the net after-tax shares of common stock acquired from the Company pursuant to any equity-based awards, unless the executive has met his individual ownership requirement.

Ø   Engagement of Independent Compensation Consultant – Our Committee retains an independent compensation consultant who reports directly to the Committee and does not provide any other services to management or the Company.

Ø   Review of Tally Sheets – Our Committee annually reviews tally sheets summarizing the compensation of our executive officers.