Tullow Oil says recruitment of a new Chief Executive Officer is well under way with a final short-list being considered by the board.

This follows the resignation of its CEO, Paul McDade in December 2020.

In its 2019 Financial Statement, the oil exploration and production company said internal restructuring has created a less complex organization and will improve efficiency and effectiveness going forward, adding.

With an expected 35% cut in its human resources, Tullow Oil is proposing the closure of both the Cape Town and Dublin corporate offices.

The company said “Following the Business Review, the Board remains confident both in the strength of Tullow’s assets and its people. Tullow produces low-cost barrels of oil in West Africa, has substantial and valuable oil reserves in both West and East Africa and has a high potential exploration portfolio in Africa and South America. The fundamentals of Tullow’s business as an Exploration and Production company remain sound.”

It added that the Board was fully committed to remaining a leading independent oil company across Africa, working closely with communities and host governments and to the creation of Shared Prosperity in the countries where Tullow operates.

Ghana

The report said Ghana’s production from TEN and Jubilee was below expectations in 2019, impacted by a number of factors which were discussed in Tullow’s ‘Board Changes and 2020 Guidance’ announcement on 9 December 2019.

However, forecasts for 2020 have taken these issues and planned remediation into account and performance in the year to date is encouraging, it noted.

A series of actions are however being taken to improve overall operating efficiency and reliability at the Jubilee FPSO.

Since the start of the year, the planned maintenance work has been successfully carried out to increase gas processing capacity.

Repairs have also been carried out to the water injection system which is currently operating at its full design capacity, adding, to sustain full water injection capacity, a task force has been formed to implement a series of system reliability improvements that will be carried out throughout the course of the year.

The statement further said discussions with Government to increase levels of gas offtake from both Jubilee and TEN have also progressed well and the Ministry of Energy (MoE) is implementing a nominations policy for increased offtake of gas.

When followed consistently, Tullow said it will reduce the amount of gas being re-injected into the field and will help to improve the Gas-to-Oil ratio over time.