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Equinor said he was considering his legal options after the United States has stopped construction of the $ 4.5 billion dollars in Norwegian Energy Group off the New York coast, in an offensive climbing the Trump administration against the offshore wind sector.
Anders Opedal, CEO of Equinor, described the order to stop the “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” order, adding that the company controlled by the Norwegian state considered it “illegal”.
Equinor is looking for a meeting with the administration of US President Donald Trump after the Norwegian Minister of Finance Jens Stoltenberg raised the question to Washington this month. But Opedal added: “We are also considering legal options.”
Equinor leaders are dark about the prospects of the ban imposed by the American secretary in the interior Doug Burgum. The person appointed by Trump, who ordered the equinor to “immediately stop all construction activities” on April 16, underlined the judgment in his Highlights of the administration so far.
Equinor said it had taken the American authorities for four years to approve his plan submitted and that he had received all the state and federal permits necessary for the 810 megawatt project, which is already completed at 30%.
The Norwegian group gives the project an accounting value of 2.5 billion dollars, of which 1 billion dollars are capital and $ 1.5 billion in project funding, while it also has an exposure of $ 1.5 billion to $ 2 billion in guarantees and termination costs to suppliers. The funding of $ 1.5 billion in the project would have returned to lenders in the event of dismissal.
The lease on the wind farm was obtained by Equinor in 2017 and the project, which could provide electricity to around 500,000 houses in New York, was carried out last year.
The decision to suspend the project has been the most serious action so far in the Trump administration campaign against the offshore wind sector, which has prompted leading developers, in particular Shell and Tlogénénergies to reduce or slow down their American plans.
Trump, in January, took an offshore and allowed wind break and ordered an examination of the already approved projects. Unlike other renewable energy projects, the American offshore wind sector is based on the federal government to allow approvals.
New York State governor Kathy Hochul has sworn Trump's decision to “fight” at the time. “I will not allow this federal exercise to stand up,” she said in a statement.
The director general of Equinor, Opedal, said that there were disturbing signs across Europe as well as in the United States that Bipartite consensus should allow long-term energy investments.
The debate in the United Kingdom and Norway was becoming more and more “polarized”, he added, pointing to new taxes from the London government in London as well as a judicial case on the development of the oilbank oil field in the North Sea.
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