Trump’s Christmas surprise: The Nordic wind power giants stopped again

Nordic energy companies’ wind power projects in the United States came to a standstill again. Like a Christmas present for, among others, a Norwegian Equinorille and for a Dane Orstedille US Department of the Interior announced on the Monday of Christmas week, that the construction work of all large offshore wind farms under construction in the country must be stopped immediately.

“Today’s decision addresses new national security risks, such as the rapid development of adversary technologies and vulnerabilities created by large offshore wind projects near population centers on the East Coast. The Trump administration will always put the safety of the American people first,” stated the Secretary of the Interior. Doug Burgum according to the administration’s announcement. According to the release, it has been known for a long time that wind turbines can cause radar interference, but now the administration also appeals to new secret intelligence.

President of the United States Donald Trump has announced that his administration will not approve new solar or wind power projects. Since then, however, the administration has repeatedly stopped the construction work of already advanced and fully licensed projects.

First in April stopped Equinor’s Empire Wind site south of Long Island. Equinor had spent about $2.5 billion on the project, and the suspension of construction work was estimated to cost the company about $50 million per week. After a month of negotiations, Norway’s own Trump whisperer, the current finance minister, was born Jens Stoltenberg with strong assistance, a deal. Equinor was allowed to continue construction and in some kind of exchange, and to please the Trump administration, the state of New York promised to invest in the construction of natural gas pipeline infrastructure.

The same thing happened in August For Ørsted’s Revolution Wind offshore wind farm off Rhode Island. At that time, the wind park was already 80 percent complete. Ørsted took the decision to court, which in September temporarily overturned the ban pending the hearing.

Ørsted’s share price plummets again

This time, two projects by Ørsted and one by Equinor (which is also Ørsted’s second largest owner after the Danish state) were stopped, as well as from the Americans From Dominion Energy and Avangridilta one from each. Dominion immediately took the decision to court, says the Danish financial media Børsen.

Equinor says in his announcement that he has done everything required in cooperation with the authorities and that he will continue to cooperate.

Ørsted tells “evaluating all the different ways to solve the situation quickly”. The company’s share price fell by 12.7 percent on the Monday of the Christmas week and has since recovered only slightly. Throughout the year, Ørsted’s share price has fallen by as much as 35 percent, partly due to problems related to US projects, but also due to the new share issue in September. Ørsted applied for approximately DKK 60 billion in additional financing with a large offering to old shareholders.

Coincidence or not, almost at the same time as the suspension, Trump appointed a new special envoy for Greenland Jeff Landryn to his task and again started talking about seizing Greenland from Denmark.