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A rendering of Equinor’s Empire Wind project Photographer: Eirik Hamre Clausen/Equinor
The Trump administration’s surprise reversal of an order to halt a $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 18%, the most in more than three years, and Vestas Wind Systems AS climbed as much as 8% in Copenhagen. Equinor ASA gained up to 2% in Oslo.
The saga over Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 project had thrown into question $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.
Several hours after Equinor announced that the US Interior Department would allow work to resume on the project, the head of the agency, Doug Burgum, posted Monday on X that he was “encouraged” by comments made by New York Governor Kathy Hochul “about her willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity.”
Hochul had met with Trump in March to discuss topics including the construction of the Constitution Pipeline, which developer Williams Cos. scrapped in 2020 after New York blocked the project over state water-quality concerns.
Williams didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. In March, the company said it was interested in building the pipeline as long as it had support from Hochul and other leaders in the region.
The governor said Monday that the state “will work with the administration and private entities on new energy projects that meet the legal requirements under New York law.”
Read More: Disputed Pipeline Is Highly Likely, Energy Chief Says
The resolution of the impasse over the wind farm “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.
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.
Read More: Trump Allows Halted NY Offshore Wind Project to Resume Work
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.
The delay happened at “the least favorable time when we had 11 ships out at sea and on standby, so the project hasn’t become better by having a month’s pause,” Opedal said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
The company will update the market regarding the impact of the delay during the presentation of its second quarter results on July 23, he said. The pause was costing $50 million a week, Molly Morris, president of Equinor Renewables Americas, said earlier this month.
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. The project offers sub-par returns of about 3%, and the stop order is likely to have cost the company about $250 million, he said.
Read More: Trump’s Offshore-Wind Halt Risks $28 Billion of Investment
Stoltenberg declined to speculate on what swayed US policy makers. There was ongoing dialog 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.
Updates with interior secretary, governor comments starting in the fourth paragraph.
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