Tullow Oil Slashes Exploration Budget By 30%, Sets Up Committees To Deal With COVID 19

Africa focused oil and gas firm, Tullow Oil Plc has cut down its exploration budget for 2020 by 45 percent.

Tullow also slashed its capital expenditure (Capex) by 30 percent this year.
The firm hopes to spend US$350 this year as capex.

In a statement posted on its website, Tullow announced that it has appointed Amalia Olivera-Riley, formerly of Repsol and ExxonMobil, as its new Exploration Director following the resignation of Angus McCoss in December last year.

According to the firm, recruitment of a new CEO is well under way with a final short-list being considered by the Board.

The group has also revised its full year production target to between 70,000 and 80,000 bopd.

Touching on the COVID-19 outbreak, the firm said it has experience in managing infectious diseases of this nature following the significant contingency plans put in place during the West African Ebola outbreak in 2015.

Tullow said it actively monitors advice from the World Health Organisation and Public Health England, as well as participates in weekly calls with the International Oil and Gas Producers’ Health Committee relating to the COVID-19 outbreak to ensure best practice precautions are being applied.

“In both Ghana and Kenya, Tullow’s in-country teams have set up their EID (Emerging Infectious Disease) Management committees in response to the current COVID-19 outbreak. These EID committees steer the local management response to the outbreak, including ensuring that our contractors have implemented appropriate measures. We have also implemented ‘self-declaration’ forms for all personnel travelling to our offshore assets in Ghana, that require people to sign-off that they have not been to the ‘specified locations’ as defined by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office in the last 30 days, as well as implementing business travel restrictions to and from these ‘specified locations’.

“In the event that the COVID-19 outbreak escalates, the country specific Business Continuity Plans set out how Tullow will continue to operate, recover quickly from, and effectively manage the response,” it said.

Source: www.energynewsafrica.com