Watching Daan Struyven from Golman Sachs head; oil research talking about oil trading in the mid 70's in the year ahead. |
 Tullow shares soar as Ghana tax victory to help $1.4bn debt refinancing
International arbitration organisation rules Africa-focused explorer will not have to pay a $320m Ghana tax bill
Joe Brennan
Fri Jan 03 2025 - 09:27
Tullow Oil’s shares soared on Friday as investors digested the Irish-founded explorer’s victory in a major Ghana tax case, which will help the company as it goes about refinancing some $1.4 billion of debt, according to analysts.
Shares in Tullow jumped by as much as 13 per cent in early trading in London.
The company announced after European markets closed the previous evening that a major international arbitration organisation had ruled that the Africa-focused company will not have to pay a $320 million (€311 million) tax bill that the Ghana government had presented to it.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled that so-called branch profit remittance tax (BPRT) did not apply to Tullow’s operations in the Deepwater Tano and West Cape Three Points fields offshore Ghana.
Tullow is still in discussions with the Government of Ghana to resolve two other tax claims.
“Tullow has a $1.4 bond maturing in May 2026 with an annual coupon of 10.25 per cent. We expect it to refinance this bond in 2025, and the removal of the BPRT contingent liability has improved its ability to do this,” said Colin Grant, an analyst with Davy.
“Tullow remains committed to Ghana, and the resolution of the BPRT tax case does not impact its ongoing operations there.”
Ashley Kelty, an analyst with Panmure Liberum, said: “The removal of a further liability will take some pressure off the stretched balance sheet, although investors will still be keen to see some significant deleveraging this year.”
The rally by Tullow’s shares have brought them back to levels seen in the middle of last month, before a potential suitor, US oil and gas group Kosmos Energy, walked away from making a bid. Kosmos announced on December 17th that it had dropped its interest in an all-stock merger, less than a week after both companies had said they were in early talks for a potential deal.
Stock dealers said at the time that investors in both companies were concerned about the $4 billion of combined debt the merged entity would have.
News of Kosmos’s interest last week came days after Rahul Dhir said he was stepping down as chief executive of Tullow.
Tullow’s net debt peaked at $4.8 billion at the end of 2016. The company saw its share price plunge about 85 per cent in the 18 months before Mr Dhir took charge in 2020, amid a series of drilling and production disappointments, exits of its then chief executive and exploration director, massive asset writedowns and warnings about potential cash shortfalls.
Asset sales and cost-cutting – together with higher oil prices – had helped Tullow pull off a make-or-break $1.8 billion debt refinancing in 2021 and chip away at its debt mountain.
Tullow, which was founded by one-time Aer Lingus accountant Aidan Heavey in 1985, closed its Dublin office in 2020 as part of a round of corporate restructuring and quit the Irish stock market last year. It had moved its domicile to the UK two decades ago.
Joe Brennan
Joe Brennan is Markets Correspondent of The Irish Times |
I know they have said they remain in dialogue on the remaining 2 claims but does this result also effectively kill off those also |
60p is reasonable target if no new developments.
This was 60 at much lower oil prices (around $60), and lower output. |
Some heavy chunky buys :)
Re-rating to 30p over the next week would be nice! |
will start going back up now after that flurry of profit takers!
Onwards and upwards for tullow :) |
Here comes a buy back! |
Very good move for Glencore. TLW are paying about 15% annual on that loan! |
Great news.
Share price should recover to reasonable levels.
If i remember correctly, Glencore guaranteed debt. Such a good move by them. |
Looking good |
Great News!
will fly today!
BOOM! |
There was a financial publication that said TLW losing the case was priced in so would expect a correction. |
International one please! |
Tullow should take the GRA and/or GNPC to court ;-) |
Hope Tullow can claim costs for the arbitration.and any interest due to none payment for Gas. |
Hope Tullow can claim costs for the arbitration. |
Well if the past is anything to go by, reserves downgrades are perhaps equally likely as upgrades! The rig was on contract for 1,165 days from 06/04/2021 until 14/06/2024. 23 wells were drilled. Then look at 'Commercial Reserves' reports revisions adds/negative for Ghana Oil millions of barrels
2021: +3.50
2022: -4.50
2023: -4.90
2024 1H: -7.00*
*"In addition, a net revision adjustment of -7.0 mmboe has been made on Jubilee to reflect production performance during 1H 2024; Tullow’s review of Jubilee reserves is ongoing, incorporating 2024 production data and results from the recent drilling programme into a new simulation model and analytical study."
Net revisions 2021/2024-1H: Minus 12.9m bbls of oil from 23 wells.
Maybe their data is wrong but if you look at PIAC reports it looks like 2 w/inj wells J62-WI and J67-WI have not been completed. Cross reference where these are from Kosmos presentations and both are on JSE. The underperforming J-69P is also in the SE but in the main field.
The CEO is always going on about how marvellous JSE is given $1bn gross was (apparently) spent on it. But why have only 2 producers been drilled (so far) and why have the 2 JSE w'inj wells not been completed?
Don't expect an answer from Rahul. The next CEO will be the one who cops that.
Having said all that would imagine an share price bounce on opening! |
One thing to guess right (the arbitration outcome), one that was existential for the company, but collect 3 rewards: one for the reduction in legal risk, one for the reduction in liquidity risk and one for the reduction in dilution risk. I think I made a bad decision investing here, but events might yet rescue me. What a relief. I expect the gross redemption yield on the bonds to drop tomorrow from that high 23%, a good indicator surely, before this evening's good news of what our future replacement finance costs might have been, an interest rate that would produce a debt principal default, based on the current P2 resources, assuming stable oil prices until they are exhausted, year end 2028. The shares seem to me to be an out of the money call option on the oil price and a successful increase in P2 resources from the drilling program this year and in 2026, all time value and no intrinsic value. Fingers crossed for a decent rise tomorrow, say to 25p, but what do I know. Nothing. AIMO. DYOR. |
Wellbutpoor …someone told me that one analyst suggested the market was pricing in a 70% chance of Tullow losing the case. Either way the refinancing of the 2026 bonds was unlikely to take place while this was overhanging the Company. There is a very professional orchestrated short on Tullow right now…they are about to learn the hard way not to pick on a Company which is likely be back on 1X cash flow to market cap in 2026 ! Booty
DYOR Do not rely on the facts or opinions expressed in the above post. |
A rare piece of good news! Interesting that our failed (or fired?) CEO unselfishly and magnanimously took all the credit ;-) He's clearly not interested in Richard sharing the limelight. |
I'd be inclined to say that the news is largely priced in.
The bonds were where the value was, Goethe obviously knew this.
Hope I'm wrong and we see the share price zoom to 30p at 8am - if only for the embattled s/h's here. |
Tullow wins arbitration https://www.tipranks.com/news/company-announcements/tullow-oil-wins-key-tax-arbitration-in-ghana |
Great news .Though came after final bell.
What difference will this make to the share price ,or is this the reason for the current upturn, so is priced in ? . |
Goethe buying the bonds... |
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