Harbour Expects to Produce Up To 475,000 Boed This Year

Harbour Energy PLC has announced output guidance of 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boed) to 475,000 boed for 2025, reflecting a full-year contribution from Wintershall Dea assets acquired near the end of 2024 and “broadly stable production in the UK”.

London-based Harbour grew its production last year by about 40 percent to 258,000 boed compared to 2023. European gas accounted for 45 percent, non-European gas 15 percent, and liquids 40 percent, according to partial results the company announced Thursday.

Harbour expects its $11.2 billion purchase of the non-Russian upstream operations of Germany’s Wintershall Dea AG, now Wintershall Dea GmbH, to gradually raise its production to 500,000 boed. The transaction, announced December 21, 2023, was completed September 2024. Integration of the new assets is progressing as planned, Harbour said Thursday.

Also on Thursday it confirmed the sale of its business in Vietnam, which includes a 53.125 percent stake in the Chim Sáo and Dua production fields, to EnQuest PLC. The sale is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2025.

“2024 was a transformational year with the completion of the Wintershall Dea transaction delivering a step change in our scale and geographic diversification, improving our margins, increasing our reserve life and expanding our resource base significantly”, said chief executive Linda Z. Cook.

“Looking to 2025, we will continue to prioritize safe and efficient operations as we complete the integration of our new business units, mature our significant 2C resource base and maintain disciplined capital allocation”.

Harbour expects capital expenditure in 2025 to land at $2.4 billion–$2.6 billion, including decommissioning spend. Compared to 2024’s expected capex of around $1.8 billion, the guidance for 2025 is higher on account of the Wintershall Dea assets. The expected acquisition-related increase is offset by reduced investment in the United Kingdom and lower exploration and appraisal expenses in Indonesia and Mexico, it said.

Revenue for 2024 totaled approximately $6.1 billion, significantly up from $3.7 billion for 2023, driven by higher production.

Harbour saw post-hedging realized prices increase year-on-year for oil and European gas but decrease for non-European Gas, averaging $82 a barrel, $11 per thousand standard cubic feet and $4 per thousand standard cubic feet respectively.

Unit operating costs averaged $16.5 per boe, compared to $16.4 per boe for 2023.

EBITDAX climbed to $4.1 billion, compared to $2.7 billion for 2023. Harbour expects income to be “impacted by material non-cash accounting charges largely driven by adverse changes to the UK fiscal regime”.

The company is “anticipated to be broadly free cash flow-neutral in 2024, excluding one-off acquisition-related costs and distributions”, Harbour said. “This reflects a material negative working capital movement and an unplanned outage at East Irish Sea in the UK in Q4 [fourth quarter]”.

Year-end net debt is estimated to be $4.7 billion, unchanged from the end of the third quarter.

Harbour distributed about $1.2 billion to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks.

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