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Why not sustainable as we clear the bad hedges, end interest payments on the debt, increase production and then the sunset clause operates on the windfall tax after December 2025?

won not one!

Happy? I am thrilled. I went all in. I was convinced that the results were going to set the world alight. BUT HBR is still cheap. It has a market cap of just $5bn and you cannot square that with a sustainable free cash flow of $2bn. So I am staying long. Forget about graphs and pull backs. They tell you absolutely nothing. I wish people would not believe such unscientific nonsense. I say just find the real value and hold and hold. And hey have I not one that prediction competition? Very close.

You never really get much extra from the talk. But yes Saint Linda did indeed say "we will be debt free in a few months". A few may be three may be four may be five. But not more.

Debt was $1.1B but now way below a $1bn. I am buying more when the market settles down.

The debt is below a $1bn. Output was higher than expected. Excellent.

The reason for no buy backs today is that once again the price all day was more than 5% above the average over the last 5 days and neither nor the mandate permits purchases in those circumstances. But it means more firepower for later!

And also debt coming down has no impact on the hedges. They are simply contracts to sell at a certain future prices and once you have made them you are stuck with them.

Onedb I have not seen the agreement with the lenders. Some hedging was required. But it is inconceivable that any additional hedging could be required by the banks . When the last results were announced the board suggested they had taken further hedges on oil "to take advantage" of the high prices. That implies it is is being done as a choice. And has proved a bad one.

My only worry is that the board has done more bad hedging on the gas and we will have not got the full benefit of these insane prices. Linda Cook is very risk adverse and the previous bad hedging has cost several billions. There is no need for it with the debt almost cleared.

Some say the CEO at BP Looney caused the windfall tax by boasting about BP being a cash machine and then saying a windfall tax would not deter plans for investment in the North Sea. Linda Cook will I think will choose her words carefully. She will talk about Harbour's contribution to solving the energy crisis. Share buybacks are less provocative than a huge increase in dividends. But she may care to point out that for many years the old Premiere Oil company paid out nothing in dividends and many investors are still sitting on huge losses. Harbour is tiny compared to BP or Shell and it just does not attract much attention any how. A 50% increase in dividends should be acceptable and nobody made any adverse comment on the share buy back in June so another $200 m should be ok.

The unused tax allowances are over $2 billion. This was the whole point of the reverse takeover. Tax is complicated and it is worth noting that some tax was paid this year and I am not sure why the unused tax allowanced could not have prevented this. But still for 2023 and 2024 tax will be be low. 2024 is the year when the bad hedging is cleared. 2026 is the year when the windfall tax ceases to apply. I do suspect that gas prices in particular will fall sharply soon. High prices lead to a destruction of demand. We can of course turn off the heating and put on a pullover - even in winter.

Banbury you over look the fact that there are huge unused tax losses to take care of ordinary tax for the time being. The windfall tax is largely mitigated by the capital allowances and the fact that there should be no finance charges for 2023 when the tax is actually payable.

The price is very much lower than at the time of the merger in dollars which is the currency that matters. I do not think any shares will have been purchased today by the company as the price all day has exceeded 5% of the average price over the previous 5 trading days. This price is all being driven by new buyers. But expectations are now sky high for Thursday so I hope there are no flies in the ointment.....

866,375 share purchased today. Total since 16th June 2022 38,215,811. Value of shares purchased at closing price today $182,633,360. But cost to company around $165M so far. Two trading days to go.

Neither ever shows an accurate close. Google especially bad. You get an accurate close from a spread betting account.

Of course markets are always forward looking. I am beginning to think the debt repayment might be well below my previous estimates. We know all the prices and the hedging. But the one unknown is output during the 2nd quarter. What however will almost be in the bag by 25th August is the third quarter and we will know just how much is being made from unhedged gas sales on Thursday morning. If Jefferies are right with the free cash flow of almost $900M for the 1st half then it ought to be at least this sum for the 2nd half. So that would be around $1.8bn. Free cash flow is after payment of dividend of $200M and after CAPEX. So this sum must find its way into either debt repayment or additional returns to shareholders. Very happy to wait 70 hours.

NSS I stabbed at $700M being paid off debt in the second quarter to bring debt down to $1bn (that is super optimistic for all sorts of reasons and I would not complain if it is anything over $400m) But if you and I are right then sure as heck it will not take another year to be debt free. After all debt will have come down $1.3bn in just six months so it ought not to take another year to clear the last measly billion. The finance cost for 2021 was $375M. Not all interest of course - the sum includes some strange exchange rate losses and all manner of facility charges. But come 2023 most of that nonsense will be ancient history. The saving of finance charges covers a huge part of any windfall tax which can be largely avoided by upping CAPEX. So interesting.

And zac it is of no consequence to look at the beginning of 2020. That was before the pandemic took hold and caused huge short term losses for oil and gas producers. It has also made many weary of the sector which remains of course vulnerable to volatile prices and uncertainty.

The $3.5bn was announced with the second quarter's results. At the moment the board is allocating 40% of free cash flow to share buy backs. So my $14bn assumes that that will be maintained which of course is dependent on maintaining the free cash flow achieved in the 2nd quarter.