By Ian McConnell
WEST of Shetland pioneer Hurricane Energy yesterday reported a jump in first-half profits after tax from $42.8 million to $67m, driven by a sharp rise in revenues from its Lancaster field, and declared itself debt-free.
However, chief executive Antony Maris expressed disappointment that the North Sea Transition Authority was “unable to provide comfort to the company with regard to the likelihood of it being granted the necessary consents related to flaring for Hurricane to make further commitments to investment in Lancaster”.
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Declaring Hurricane’s team had made “enormous efforts” on this front, Mr Maris said: “We have expended considerable effort and some funds into maintaining the ability to deliver a new well in the Lancaster field, termed P8, in order to meet our ‘maximum economic recovery’ obligations to the UK Government. Given our emissions challenges, we have worked closely with the UK’s offshore regulator, the...NSTA, to plot a way forward for Lancaster.”
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He added: “In parallel, however, we have been pursuing alternative capital allocation opportunities outside of our existing asset base – a task which is challenging owing to the current market volatility and one that we can now focus on completely.”
Hurricane reported revenues of $159.5m for the six months to June 30, up from $124.5m in the prior first half.
Mr Maris said: “Continuing our close collaboration with our FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading vessel) operator, we have been able to deliver superb uptime performance, leading to the production of more oil in the period.”
Hurricane, which has seen a remarkable recovery in its fortunes with the surge in oil prices, said it had “passed a key milestone” with its repayment of outstanding convertible bonds in July.
The company came close to being taken over by bondholders in June last year, before the High Court in London rejected the restructuring plan concerned.
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