The Trump administration’s surprise reversal of an order to halt a US$5 billion wind energy project off the coast of New York offered some respite to a beleaguered industry whose future in the US has been in doubt.
Denmark’s Orsted AS jumped as much as 15%, the most in more than three years, and Vestas Wind Systems AS climbed as much as 5.7% in Copenhagen. Equinor gained up to 1.9% in Oslo.
The saga over Equinor ASA’s Empire Wind 1 project had thrown into question US$28 billion of offshore wind investments in the US. Although the White House’s broader opposition to offshore wind is still very much in effect, it appears that the worst case scenario for the industry’s biggest players will be avoided, at least for now.
The situation “shows it is possible and useful to discuss questions with the Trump administration,” Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Orsted Shares Jump | The Danish wind farm developer rose the most in three years
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Offshore wind has been a frequent target of President Donald Trump, with industry watchers expecting early-stage developments to be slowed or thwarted. Still, it came as a shock in mid-April when his administration stopped Empire Wind, a development that was already in full swing. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Biden administration had rushed the project’s approvals.
Equinor’s Chief Executive Officer Anders Opedal visited the White House earlier this month to lobby on behalf of the project. The company was informed late on Monday by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that the project can resume.
Equinor investors, some of whom view renewables as being outside the company’s core oil and gas competence, may have “mixed feelings” about Empire Wind moving forward again, Sparebank1 Markets analyst Teodor Sveen-Nilsen said in a note to investors. The project offers sub-par returns of about 3%, and the stop order is likely to have cost the company about US$250 million, he said.
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Stoltenberg declined to speculate on what swayed US policy makers. There was ongoing dialogUE with various members of the administration, he said, including Kevin Hasset and Scott Bessent. These were “useful discussions and good contacts,” he said.
“What I sought to do was to underscore the importance of finding a solution,” he said, as well as “predictability” and the value of Equinor’s operations in the US, which include natural gas.
