Profits at Britain’s biggest North Sea oil and gas company are set to soar 750% after soaring energy prices
Profits at Britain’s biggest oil and gas company in the North Sea are set to soar 750% after soaring energy prices.
Harbor Energy is expected to have made £2.2bn before tax last year, up from £260m in 2021, according to city forecasts compiled by Refinitiv.
In profit: Harbor Energy is expected to have made £2.2bn before tax last year
Rising profits for the company – the largest North Sea producer – have been driven by soaring oil and gas prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which also pushed up household bills skyrocket. But the company is ready to take a hit from the government windfall tax.
Harbor – which also works in Indonesia, Vietnam, Mexico and Norway – lost its place in the FTSE 100 in December following a share price plunge triggered by a windfall tax extension in November .
Its chief executive, 64-year-old American Linda Cook, had publicly pleaded with the Chancellor not to extend the tax, saying it would risk ‘steering investment out of the UK altogether’.
The £2.5bn company has since said its shareholders have urged it to focus new investment overseas.
