The energy price cap will jump to £3,549 from October
The largest producer of oil and gas in the UK’s North Sea saw its profit increase more than twelvefold in the first six months of the year as record gas prices are set to plunge millions of households in the UK into fuel poverty.
Harbour Energy said it had made 1.5 billion dollars (£1.3 billion) in profit before tax in the six months to the end of June.
It was a massive jump for the private equity-backed company which has seen its shares soar by a third in the past year.
In the first six months of 2021 profit was 120 million dollars (£102 million).
It means a big payout for the company’s backers, as Harbour announced it would be returning an extra 100 million dollars to them in share buybacks.
It comes on top of an previously announced 200 million dollar buyback and the same again in dividends, which were announced in March.
The soaring profit came from the boom in energy prices due in part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While households have been hurting, and face a potentially disastrous winter, Harbour and other oil and gas producers are reaping the benefits.
Harbour said that the average price of the oil that it sells rose from 58 dollars per barrel in the first six months of last year to 82 dollars in the first half of 2022.
Meanwhile the price of a therm of UK-produced natural gas rose from 38 dollars to 69 dollars.
The business said that it expects to owe around 300 million dollars to the Government as part of the windfall tax this year.
“We delivered a strong first half performance, realising value from past acquisitions, increased production efficiency and significant investment in our asset base,” said chief executive Linda Cook.
“Our Tolmount project alone – brought onstream in April – has increased UK domestic natural gas supply by over five per cent.
“At a time when many are struggling with high energy prices, we are increasing investment by circa 30% compared to last year, focusing on doing what we can to deliver reliable, domestic oil and gas from our existing portfolio in a safe and responsible manner.”
Transaction in Own Shares 25 August 2022 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Shell plc (the ‘Company’) announces that on 25 August 2022 it purchased the following number of Shares for cancellation. Aggregated information on Shares purchased according to trading venue: Date of purchaseNumber of Shares purchasedHighest price paid Lowest price paid Volume weighted average price paid per shareVenueCurrency25/08/20221,100,000 £23.3900£23.0550£23.2253LSEGBP25/08/2022- £0.0000£0.0000£0.0000Chi-X (CXE)GBP25
North Sea’s biggest oil and gas producer enjoys jump in fossil fuel prices following invasion of Ukraine
Harbour Energy, the UK North Sea's biggest oil and gas producer, increased a share buyback programme by 50% to $300 million on Thursday as it reported first-half free cash flow of $1.4 billion. Harbour, which is set to produce just over 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent this year and reduced its net debt to $1.1 billion from $1.7 billion in March, expects to pay $500 million in UK tax for 2022. Around $300 million of this is due to a 25% windfall tax on oil and gas producers introduced in May, said Chief Executive Linda Cook.
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Norway, which has overtaken Russia as the biggest gas supplier to Europe in the wake of the war in Ukraine, will curtail its gas exports significantly next month due to heavy maintenance activity, with some work deferred from earlier this year. Russian flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline across the Baltic to Germany will fall to zero next week as the pipeline undergoes maintenance for three days from Aug. 31, and market participants are worried they will not resume afterwards. Norway supplies gas via pipelines to Britain, Germany, Belgium and France and is expected to produce some 122 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas this year, according to official forecasts made in May, up 8% from 2021 and possibly beating a record set five years ago.
The FTSE 100 closed the day 8.23 points higher, or 0.11%, at 7479.74.
Royal Mail told the London Stock Exchange that Kwasi Kwarteng ‘reasonably suspects’ that Vesa Equity Investment might increase its stake.
PRESS RELEASE Paris, August 25, 2022 Provisional annual results at end June 2022 The solid performance of the Nordic countries has led to an improvement in the results of the Ramsay Santé group, despite the persistent challenges of high inflation, a shortage of nursing and clinical staff and the ongoing pandemic, in which Ramsay Santé has continued to play a leading role in Europe. In line with its Yes We Care 2025 strategic plan, Ramsay Santé has continued to invest at a level comparable with p
The cap will affect around 24 million households on default tariffs in England, Scotland and Wales.
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Ukraine faces its most difficult winter in modern history but should manage to reach a government goal of building 19 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas reserves in time, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Thursday. Ukraine abandoned Russian natural gas imports in 2015 and now gets its gas from the rest of Europe, but soaring prices and the huge cost of Russia's Feb. 24 invasion have called into question the feasibility of building up such a large amount of fuel. Russia calls its actions a "special military operation."
The £5bn takeover of Micro Focus by a Canadian rival is a “shame for all stakeholders”, its former chief executive has said.