Tullow Oil galvanised by Uganda farm-down
Africa-focused Tullow Oil is setting its sights on boosting production at its Jubilee field in Ghana and success from a busy drilling programme, putting to use $2.9bn (£1.8bn) of funds from partners which bought into its Uganda project.
Reporting a 48 per cent increase in first-half pretax profit to $829m and an unchanged dividend of 4p a share, the company on Wednesday confirmed a target set earlier this month to bring output at the Jubilee field up to 90,000 barrels a day by the end of the year using an acid stimulation process.
It said its financial flexibility had been “fundamentally transformed” by bringing international oil companies Total and CNOOC into its production and export pipeline project in Uganda’s Lake Albert Rift Basin.
First oil from the Uganda project is still more than three years away, Tullow said, predicting a total project cost of between $8bn and $12bn, and saying the partners and the Ugandan government were still reviewing the plans, along with the government’s own proposal for a refinery.
“The operators have shared these development plans with the government and are now about to embark on a joint detailed review of this plan,” Tullow said.
“The Government of Uganda is in the process of establishing a multi-disciplinary and cross-ministerial committee to oversee the review of these development plans. Following government approval of the plans, it is expected that first production will follow around 36 months later.”