Tullow Oil has said it secured a record price of $130 (€111.2) a barrel for an April shipment of oil drilled off the coast of Ghana, well ahead of leading global benchmarks, amid tensions in the Middle East.
The Irish-founded company achieved an average of $90 a barrel for its first four shipments of the year, it said in an investor presentation on Tuesday that accompanied its full-year results for last year.
The company said West African crude oil is continuing to trade at a premium as shipments from the Middle East are affected by severe disruptions.
Brent crude, the European benchmark, was trading at over $111 a barrel late on Tuesday morning, up from $73 before the Iran war. West Texas Intermediate was going for just under $100.
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Tullow, which said on Monday it had completed a major debt refinancing, also forecast annual production to come in at the higher end of its outlook range, after a strong start to the year.
Shares in the company soared more than 11 per cent in London trading.
[ Tullow Oil plunges to record low after raising net debt outlookOpens in new window ]
The jump in shares is a “timely reminder of oil price leverage,” with the company now able to generate more cash than it spends this year, said James Hosie, an equity analyst at Shore Capital.
“It’s also another example of a west African producer talking about getting a significant premium to the Brent benchmark for April cargoes as a result of Middle East supply disruption,” Hosie added.
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The company has had a boost – with shares rising 100 per cent to date in 2026 – as the Iran war has pushed buyers to seek alternatives to oil stuck in the Gulf. Still, it remains down more than 75 per cent over the past five years.
Tullow expects output for 2026 to be “at the higher end” of its forecast of 34,000 to 42,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.
The heavily-indebted company is now focused entirely on its Jubilee and TEN oilfields off the Ghana coast after selling its assets in Gabon (raising $300 million) and Kenya (in a deal worth up to $120 million) last year.
The company posted an 87 per cent slump in profit after tax to $7 million for 2025, partly due to lower production following asset sales and delayed payments from the Ghanaian government, which continued to weigh on cash flow.
The agreed refinancing has seen its $1.3 billion of bonds that was due next month replaced by bonds and loans that start to mature from 2028.
The deal was accepted by 99 per cent of bondholders and Glencore, a commodities trading firm that lender to the company.
The company was founded by Irishman Aidan Heavey in 1985 in Tullow, Co Carlow. It moved its domicile to the UK more than two decades ago, closed its Dublin office in 2020 and delisted from the Dublin stock market in 2022. – Additional reporting, Reuters
