Amid unresolved technical issues at Tullow's floating storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel in the giant Jubilee oilfield offshore Ghana, production is back on line but output is less than half of what it should be, while investors are told they won't see any dividends this year.
Production resumed on 4 May, but the repair of a turret could take up to a year.
Right now, the company is working to ramp up production to above 30,000 barrels per day, but this is well under the originally anticipated 100,000 bpd. It was producing 103,000 bpd last year.
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Tullow Oil CEO Charles Darku said the issue is a faulty turret bearing on its Kwame Nkrumah FPSO, rendering the vessel unstable.
There are no clear indications as of yet when the problem will be fixed and full production resumed.
In March, Tullow was forced to halt production over these technical issues.
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Tullow has assured shareholders in Ghana that dividend payments will be resumed early next year, at the same time confirming that no dividends will be issued before then.
"2015 was a very challenging year for Tullow and the entire oil and gas industry, but due to the early and decisive actions we took in late 2014, we have successfully restructured and reset Tullow's business for a potentially sustained period of relatively low oil prices," Tullow CEO Aidan Heavey told shareholders.
By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com
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