Tullow Oil Plc settled a capital gains tax dispute with the government of Uganda after agreeing to pay $250 million related to a 2012 deal with Total SA and Cnooc Ltd.
The company paid $142 million at the time and will pay the remaining $108 million in three equal installments, it said Monday in a statement. The first $36 million portion has already been paid with remainder due in 2016 and 2017, it said.
Significant output of oil in Uganda, first discovered there in 2006, has been restrained by delays including wrangling between the East African country and companies about how much crude to process locally or export through a pipeline. Uganda has an estimated 3.5 billion barrels of crude, according to the Energy Ministry, with Tullow, Total and Cnooc planning to tap the Lake Albert fields.
“In recent months, the government of Uganda has proposed welcome and necessary changes to its tax regime for oil and gas investments which it is hoped will enable substantive progress to be made toward the sanction of the Lake Albert oil development,” Chief Executive Officer Aidan Heavey said in the statement
Bloomberg
