The North Sea’s biggest oil and gas producer revealed it took a $565million hit due to the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) in 2023.
The firm said it paid “an effective tax rate of 95%” under the North Sea tax regime although it insisted it was “well positioned for future opportunities”.
In its full year results, Harbour Energy highlighted how production from a key North Sea field, Beryl, was “impacted” due to the windfall tax last year after its operator, Apache, paused further subsea and platform drilling “in response to the EPL”.
But the London-listed firm also set out how its transformational $11.2bn deal to buy oil and has assets abroad will make Harbour into one of “largest and most geographically diverse independent oil and gas companies” in the world by the end of the year.
Harbour Energy revealed it plans to buy the international oil and gas assets of Wintershall DEA in December, in a move that would reduce the firm’s reliance on the North Sea from 100% of its production to 40%.
The firm added that its investments in two UK carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, Viking and Acorn in Peterhead, “saw good momentum” in 2023 after both were awarded track 2 status last year.
The firm said: “These projects have a critical role to play in the UK's transition to a lower carbon economy and provide a potential long-term stable income stream for Harbour.”
In its full year results to end of December, Harbour said pre-tax profits slumped from $2.5 billion to $600 million in 2023, although its profits after tax rose from $8m to $32m.
The firm added it will have returned $1billion to shareholders in the three years it has been a public company including a $249m share buy back and a $200m dividend last year.
Harbour Chief Executive Linda Cook said: “We are excited about our future as we look to continue to build a geographically diverse, large scale, independent oil and gas company focused on safe and responsible operations, value creation and shareholder returns."