North Sea energy producer heading for £2.2bn profit

Profits at Britain’s biggest North Sea oil and gas company are set to rocket 750 per cent after the surge in energy prices.

Harbour Energy is expected to have made £2.2 billion before tax last year, up from £260 million in 2021, according to City forecasts compiled by Refinitiv. 

In profit: Harbour Energy is expected to have made £2.2 billion before tax last year

The profit surge at the firm – the biggest producer in the North Sea – has been driven by soaring oil and gas prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which also sent household bills rocketing. But the company is braced to take a significant hit from the Government’s windfall tax.

Harbour – which also works in Indonesia, Vietnam, Mexico and Norway – lost its place in the FTSE 100 in December following a share price slide triggered by an extension of the windfall tax in November. 

Its chief executive, 64-year-old American Linda Cook, had pleaded publicly with the Chancellor not to expand the levy, saying it would risk ‘driving investment out of the UK altogether’.

The £2.5 billion company has since said that its shareholders have urged it to focus new investments overseas.