Tullow urges tax regime clarity

Tullow Oil hasn’t ruled out adding Ireland-based assets to its portfolio and has called for more clarity regarding the Government’s tax regime plans for the local exploration sector.

Speaking ahead of the company’s Irish shareholders’ meeting in Dublin yesterday, Tullow chief executive Aidan Heavey noted that the company examines every licensing round opened here and likely will again when the next one — for waters off the west coast — is as expected launched later this year.

However, he noted that Tullow remains specific in what geological plays it goes after and said that, with nearly 85% of revenues emanating from Africa, the company’s main focus will be on boosting production from its eastern African onshore assets — in Uganda and Kenya — in the next four years and increasing its offshore western African production by 2016. By that stage, commercial flows from Tullow’s next big producing asset, the $5bn TEN project offshore Ghana, should have started.