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million. Heavey became president last year after more than three decades as general manager. He was expected to stay with Tullow until 2019.
Tribute to Mr. Heavey Wednesday General Manager Paul McDade characterized his predecessor as a pioneer.
"He founded Tullow 32 years ago as a small gas producer in Senegal, and since then Tullow has been present in 45 countries around the world, including 20 in Africa," said McDade.
Tullow is now recognized as Ireland's most successful exploration company, despite recent setbacks following the collapse of oil. 2014
An accountant of Co Roscommon, Mr. Heavey set up the oil and gas explorer after working for Tullow Engineering at Co Carlow
Tullow's focus is on oil and gas. buying assets that the biggest players were selling or in which they were not interested. It started with Senegal in Africa, where in the mid-1980s the World Bank sought an entity to manage a range of assets producing gas. From there, he moved to Bangladesh.
In 2001, he paid BP and Amoco GBP 201 million for oil wells in the North Sea. The turnover has been multiplied by nine to 125 million euros and the profits have risen to 36 million euros compared to 500,000 euros
Muscle
This has given Tullow strength to do more business. In 2004, it acquired Energy Africa, an operator with oil and gas exploration licenses in countries such as Egypt, Ghana, Mauritania, Morocco and Uganda.
Tullow discovered and exploited oil off the coast of Ghana. He then found a field in Uganda's Lake Albert Basin that could produce 200,000 barrels of oil a day.
He recruited the French giant Total and the Chinese player CNOCC to help develop this. Tullow is still developing Uganda while he is working on a new discovery in Kenya with the capacity to produce 80,000 barrels a day.
From the beginning, Tullow and Mr. Heavey focused on Africa. "He always felt that there were tremendous opportunities out there, not just in oil and gas, but in business in general," says Job Langbroek, an analyst at Davy, a stockbroker. Dublin Securities
. He came to do business on the continent, because the people do not see this country as a former colonial power.
His commercial instincts have pushed him to pursue opportunities. At the same time, he was hiring people with the technical skills to operate the goods he was buying.
"One of the unique aspects of Heavey was and remains the tremendous loyalty that Tullow's staff had towards him, even when the company was operating with a smoky capital," said Mr. Langbroek. "He always believed that if you had the right people around you, things would end up working out."
Falling Away
Tullow traced a trail in terms of exploration in Atlantic Margins of Ghana and then in the Rift in Uganda Valley.
A move towards the geological "mirror" of Ghana off South America seemed to give similar results, but was disappointing
However, Tullow's decision to persist there and buy permits in Guyana As his blocks are located near an area that, according to Exxon, could produce 4.5 billion of barrels of oil.
Tullow's pioneering approach allowed his actions to pass from the state of penny stock to the London market at the beginning of the decade.
His fate was reversed when the price of oil dropped from 60% four years ago to less than $ 40 a barrel at one point.
This period was one of the most difficult in the history of the company. Staff cuts followed, though Tullow handled them without any bad blood.
million. Langbroek believes that he is now out of the woods, helped by a recovery in prices at around $ 80 a barrel. "The debt has fallen to $ 3 billion and the goal is to reach $ 2.5 billion," he said.
The analyst believes that Tullow can live with this debt which, according to him, should dampen naturally. , the transition from Mr. Heavey to Mr. McDade as General Manager went well.
His successor as chairman, former Drax Group General Manager, Dorothy Thompson, is considered a strong figure.
It was known in the industry that Mr. Heavey did not want to leave the company that he had founded until better shape, which according to observers has now been achieved.
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