Tullow has been waiting since last year for formal approval from the Ugandan government to bring in new partners French oil major Total and Chinese group CNOOC to start a major oil development in the East African country.

“We’re at the stage now where all the main points have been agreed so we’re just finalising the documentation,” said Chief Executive Aidan Heavey.

“It should be pretty quick. There is nothing there to stop it going ahead now, we just have to wait and see.”

“There’s no specific timeline (for receiving approval from the Ugandan government) which may be one of the reasons why the shares are down ... They also disappointed on their results as well,” said Royal Bank of Scotland analyst Phil Corbett.

Tullow said full-year pretax profit soared 361 percent to $152 million in 2010, but the result fell short of the consensus market forecast of $192 million according to a company-supplied poll of around 20 analysts.

Exploration write-offs were $20 million higher than previously predicted and administration costs rose as the company increased staff numbers by around 35 percent during the year, said Chief Financial Officer Ian Springett, explaining the miss on the consensus forecast.

First oil production from Tullow’s Jubilee field development off the coast of Ghana in late 2010 helped lift its profit.

Chief Operating Officer Paul McDade said that further exploration in Ghana was positive and the company was eyeing a 75,000 to 125,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) development at the Enyenra and Tweneboa fields, which could double Tullow’s output from Ghana by the end of 2014.

The company also said it was on track to ramp up output from Jubilee to 120,000 bopd in the next five months and plans to get a local share listing before July.

The Ghana Stock Exchange has long called for multinationals operating in the West African country to list shares locally, making it easier for Ghanaians to invest in them and generating more interest in a bourse where trading volumes remain small.

UGANDA TAX

Heavey also said Tullow will not pay taxes Uganda says are owed by Heritage Oil, Tullow’s former partner in the oil licence blocks in the Albertine rift basin.

Kampala has said it wants to find a basis for resolving a tax issue with Heritage before it gives the final go-ahead to Tullow buying Heritage’s stakes in the oil blocks and selling on stakes to Total and CNOOC.

“We will pay our own taxes and everybody is liable for their own taxes,” Heavey said.

An energy ministry source in Uganda told Reuters on Monday that the Ugandan government had proposed that Tullow pay the outstanding taxes on the deal.

Heritage, whose shares were trading up 7 percent at 302 pence at 1508 GMT, has disputed the tax charges but made a down payment of $121 million and put the outstanding $283 million amount in an escrow account pending resolution of the dispute.

Tullow Oil also said it was abandoning legal efforts to win back two Democratic Republic of Congo oil blocks in Lake Albert which it lost to two little-known firms last June.

Tullow paid $500,000 in 2006 for rights to the blocks, which adjoin its Ugandan acreage but they were re-awarded by presidential decree last June to previously unheard of Caribbean-registered firms Caprikat Ltd and Foxwhelp Ltd.