Net Power Inc. (NPWR) stock intrinsic value fair value estimate & owner earnings analysis

What the company is today. Net Power went public in 2023 to commercialise the Allam-Fetvedt oxy-combustion cycle, a natural-gas power process that captures its own carbon dioxide. That plan has now been abandoned in practice. After the front-end engineering study for the first utility-scale plant (SN1, Project Permian in West Texas) came in far over budget, the company suspended equipment orders in March 2025, halted SN1 and its La Porte, Texas demonstration plant in late 2025, wrote off goodwill, the technology and plant assets ($1.5 billion of impairments in 2025 and a further $193.7 million in the second quarter of 2026), and on 8 September 2026 signed agreements with Baker Hughes indefinitely suspending the turbine joint-development and commercial agreements. A licence amendment allows future royalties, but no royalty has been agreed. The new plan is to build, own and operate modular natural-gas power plants, starting with Project Permian near Midland, Texas, initially without carbon capture. Two gas turbine generator sets (about 68 megawatts) are on order, but there is no signed power buyer, no project financing and no partner capital, the letter of intent to license Entropy's carbon-capture technology has expired, and the final investment decision is no longer expected in 2026. The company has never had meaningful revenue. Earnings history. Measured as cash generated for owners after stock-based pay and all capital spending, the business has consumed money every year: about $83 million in 2023, $140 million in 2024 and $234 million in 2025 (roughly $0.39, $0.65 and $1.04 per share, counting all 225 million Class A and Class B shares, because the operating company's results are consolidated in full and the Class B holders own the rest of it). Those years describe a technology developer that no longer exists, so we do not project them forward. We treated all capital spending as a real cost, since revenue was negligible and the equipment bought was later written off; the huge 2025 accounting impairments are non-cash and were not charged again. Interest income on the cash pile was excluded from the forward burn so the cash is not counted twice. What it is worth. With no contract, customer or approved project, nothing we can point to yet produces earnings, so every case gives Project Permian no earnings value. The shares are therefore worth the cash on hand, less what the company is committed to spend and the overhead it will burn before a project either proceeds or is abandoned. At 30 June 2026 the company held $308 million of cash and short-term securities and has no borrowings; we deduct about $22 million of current liabilities and the La Porte decommissioning obligation, leaving about $286 million, plus $55.8 million of unconditional equipment and construction commitments running through 2028. Cash spending has fallen sharply: in the second quarter of 2026 research spending was down 84% and project development spending down 96% from a year earlier, and operating costs excluding impairment and depreciation were about $12-13 million for the quarter, against a burn of $234 million in 2025. That fall is dated and documented (the late-2025 shutdown of SN1 and La Porte and the suspension of the Baker Hughes program retroactive to 1 January 2026), which is why we assume a lower burn than the 2025 figure. Bear case ($0.09 per share): overhead runs at the first-half-2026 average of about $85 million a year for three more years while the company chases a power buyer and financing, the committed equipment is paid for and the project is abandoned, recovering only about 30% of its cost. The business consumes about $266 million in present value against $286 million of net cash, leaving about $20 million. The company says its liquidity covers the next 12 months only if it makes no further pre-investment-decision equipment commitments, while also saying it is evaluating buying more gas power units; that tension is the main route to this case. A shareholder lawsuit over past Project Permian disclosures is pending and its cost could not be estimated. Base case ($0.55 per share): overhead stays near the second-quarter-2026 run rate of about $50 million a year including stock pay for three years (roughly the span to the previously targeted early-2029 start-up), the committed equipment is bought and keeps about half its cost as marketable gas generating equipment. The business consumes about $162 million in present value; after that, about $125 million of the net cash is left. Bull case ($0.91 per share): management keeps costs at second-quarter levels and within about two years either finances Phase I or stops, as it has already shown it will by shutting SN1 and suspending the oxy-combustion program; the equipment is installed or resold near cost. The business consumes about $83 million, leaving about $204 million. A financed and profitable power plant would be worth more than this, but until a buyer for the power and financing are signed there is nothing we can responsibly value. There is no debt in any case, so what the company owes is limited to its operating liabilities and equipment commitments. What would make this wrong: a signed offtake contract and committed financing for Project Permian would create value we have not counted (and likely dilution we have not charged); new large equipment orders or a renewed technology program without a customer would push value toward the bear case. A 30 June 2026 figure for interest receivable was not available, so the first-half 2026 working-capital movement is approximate.