By Tom Bergin and Phil Waller LONDON (Reuters) - UK-based oil explorer Tullow Oil on Wednesday raised 402 million pounds in a share placing as it seeks to secure finance to develop big oil finds in the face of harsh debt markets. Tullow Chief Executive Aidan Heavey said the company was also on track to seal a $2 billion bank financing package in February. However, after the sale of a stake in the M'Boundi oil field in the Republic of Congo to the Korean National Oil Company fell through, Tullow said it wants to remove any possible risk to its projects. "There's been a lot of rumours in the market about fund raising and the need for fund raising," Heavey told reporters on a conference call. "We want to make sure that the business is fully secured and can continue to accelerate its activities". The company said its average working interest production for 2009 was expected to be 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). After announcing the successful placing of 67 million shares at 600 pence, shares in Tullow reversed earlier losses and were trading up 1 percent at 606.5 pence at 1206 GMT. Tullow shares had fallen 3 percent to trade at 582 pence in early morning trade, underperforming the DJ Stoxx European oil and gas sector index. The shares also lost about 4 percent on Tuesday on rumours of the share sale. "A share placing to effectively make-good the funding shortfall arising on termination of M'Boundi sale should not derail the underlying Tullow equity story," Mark Bloomfield, oil analyst at Citigroup said in a research note. Bloomfield said the 2009 production guidance may disappoint investors. The share placing will boost Tullow's share capital by around 9.1 percent. Heavey said it was supported by some of the company's biggest investors. Tullow expects to pay an interest rate of about 3.5 percent above LIBOR for its loans, Heavey said. Two years ago, the company's borrowing costs were about 1 percent above LIBOR, executives said at the time. Tullow said its Jubilee field in Ghana has a resource potential of up to 1.8 billion barrels and that recent oil finds in Uganda meant it had sufficient reserves to justify a full field development including an export pipeline across Kenya. Heavey reiterated Tullow's strategy remained to sell down part of its interests in Uganda but added that while it had received many approaches from potential buyers, it had decided not to engage in sale negotiations at the moment. The finds in Ghana and Uganda contributed to a 500 percent reserve replacement rate in 2008. Tullow said the planned sale of its stake in the M'Boundi oil field was cancelled after government approvals were not received "within a reasonable timeframe". | 
