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Equinor has said it is considering its legal options after the US halted construction on the Norwegian energy group’s $4.5bn wind farm off the New York coast, in an escalation of the Trump administration’s offensive against the offshore wind sector.
Anders Opedal, Equinor’s chief executive, called the stop order “unprecedented” and “extraordinary”, adding that the Norwegian state-controlled company considered it “unlawful”.
Equinor is seeking a meeting with the administration of US President Donald Trump after Norway’s finance minister Jens Stoltenberg raised the issue in Washington this month. But Opedal added: “We’re also considering legal options.”
Equinor executives are gloomy about the prospects of the ban imposed by US interior secretary Doug Burgum being lifted. The Trump appointee, who ordered Equinor to “immediately halt all construction activities” on April 16, highlighted the stop in his highlights of the administration so far.
Equinor said it had taken four years for US authorities to approve its submitted plan and that it had received all the necessary state and federal permits for the 810 megawatt project, which is already 30 per cent completed.
The Norwegian group gives the project a book value of $2.5bn, of which $1bn is equity and $1.5bn in project financing, while it also has exposure of $1.5bn-$2bn in guarantees and termination fees to suppliers. The $1.5bn in project financing would be returned to lenders in the event of termination.
The lease on the wind farm was obtained by Equinor in 2017 and the project, which could supply power to about 500,000 homes in New York, was given the go-ahead last year.
The decision to pause the project was the most serious action so far in the Trump administration’s campaign against the offshore wind sector, which has prompted leading developers including Shell and TotalEnergies to reduce or slow their US plans.
Trump in January paused offshore wind leasing and permitting and ordered a review of already approved projects. Unlike other renewable energy projects, the US offshore wind sector relies on the federal government for permitting approvals.
New York state governor Kathy Hochul vowed at the time to “fight” the Trump decision. “I will not allow this federal over-reach to stand,” she said in a statement.
Equinor’s chief executive Opedal said there were worrying signs across Europe as well as in the US that the bipartisan consensus needed to enable long-term energy investments was breaking down.
The debate in both the UK and Norway was becoming more “polarised”, he added, pointing to new taxes from the Labour government in London as well as a court case over the development of the Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea.
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