Tullow pays $250 mln to settle Uganda tax dispute out of court

LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - Tullow Oil (LSE: TLW.L - news) has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a tax dispute with the Ugandan government out of court, almost half of the sum the east African country had originally demanded in tax relating to a sale of oil licences.

Legal proceedings have now been dropped, Tullow said on Monday.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Tullow were rose 0.7 percent by 0942 GMT.

"The settlement of this long-running dispute is good news for Tullow and Uganda," said Tullow Chief Executive Aidan Heavey.

Uganda ordered Tullow to pay $473 million in capital gains tax following its $3 billion sale of a 66.6 percent stake in various oil licences to France's Total (Swiss: FP.SW - news) and China's CNOOC (HKSE: 0883.HK - news) in 2012.

"The settlement clears another obstacle in the path of developing East Africa's substantial oil resources," said analysts at J.P Morgan Cazenove.

(Reporting by Karolin Schaps, editing by Louise Heavens)