Chevron, Petronas Paid Chad Taxes

US oil major Chevron and Malaysia?s state oil company Petronas will pay Chad $281.6 million under a deal to end a tax dispute which saw them threatened with expulsion from the country.

The deal, reached during talks in the capital N?Djamena this week, includes a $64 million exceptional tax credit for the companies, the government said in a statement late on Friday. ?Chevron and Petronas have agreed to pay companies tax totalling $281,649,974 for 2005 and three quarters of 2006,? it said.

Chad?s President Idriss Deby in August ordered the two companies to leave the country, because they allegedly had refused to pay 250 billion CFA francs ($484.8 million) which the government said it was owed under a 2000 taxation agreement.

The statement said the government still had to give its official approval to the deal, and the payments would be made within seven days of that happening.