The five executive directors of Tullow Oil increased their salaries from £458,044 (€582,000) in 1997 to £732,046 (€930,000) in 1998. The average has risen from £91,600 to £146,400. Tullow incurred an operating loss £579,321 in 1998 compared with a profit of £1,298,422. A performance related payment of £127,737 was made to the executive directors in 1997; none was made last year. Mr Aidan Heavey, managing director, received 1,230,230 options this year bringing the number of options to 2,696,830. The option price is an average of 56p, compared with a market price of around 63p. He owns 6.9 million Tullow shares.