EnQuest was significantly back in the black in its last financial year, despite a big drop in output.
The oil and gas company, whose office locations include Aberdeen, made after-tax profits of £285million in 2021, as against losses of £355million for the previous 12 months.
This turnaround in its financial fortunes came even though production fell to 44,415 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) compared to a figure of 59,116 in 2020.
EnQuest chief executive Amjad Bseisu said: "We made good progress against our strategic objectives in 2021, concluding three acquisitions, refinancing our senior secured debt facility, generating significant free cash flow of $396.8million (£300million) and reducing our year-end net debt to $1,222million (£925million) - its lowest level since 2014.
"We have made strong progress on emissions reduction, which continues to be a focus for the group.
"We have also started 2022 well, with production to the end of February averaging 50,408 boepd - towards the top end of our full-year guidance range.
"We have also continued to reduce our net debt - down to $1,090million (£825million) at the end of February - in line with our strategic priorities.
"With a supportive oil-price environment and an active programme of nine wells and seven workovers in 2022 - our largest sanctioned programme since 2014 and our first new wells in over two years - we remain confident on delivering a good performance this year.
"The acquisition of Golden Eagle has strengthened our portfolio, building on our track record of value-creation through innovative, disciplined M&A.
"EnQuest's business is strongly positioned to play an important role in the energy transition. We will do so by responsibly optimising production, leveraging existing infrastructure, delivering decommissioning and exploring new energy and decarbonisation opportunities."
It was last October when EnQuest completed the deal for a 26.69% non-operated interest in the producing Golden Eagle area, for an initial consideration of £245million. The company describes Golden Eagle as a highly cash-generative asset providing significant value enhancement.
The other two acquisitions completed last year were for 40.81% of the Bressay heavy-oil field, and 100% of the P1078 licence containing the Bentley heavy-oil discovery.
EnQuest said last year’s production of 44,415 boepd reflected a “strong” performance at Kraken and the contribution from Golden Eagle, offset by topside and well integrity-related outages at Magnus, planned maintenance and a subsea power umbilical failure at the Greater Kittiwake Area and expected natural declines across the portfolio.
The company explained that the natural declines were to a large extent a consequence of a necessary pause in the group's drilling programme following materially-lower oil prices in 2020 and into 2021.
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