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According to the energy group boss behind the project, the Trump administration overturned opposition to the $5 billion offshore wind farm, but not only protects jobs, it also reversed it as part of a political deal over a long-term gas pipeline.
The White House issued a surprise order in April to halt work on the Imperial-style development of Equiner, an 84-turbine, 2.1 gigawatt project, 30 miles from the New York Coast. The project includes a 70-acre port terminal in Brooklyn, one of the largest ports in the United States.
President Donald Trump’s hostility towards Windfarm is well documented – he once said “we said it was scattered all over our country…. like dropping trash on the field,” but Equiner CEO Anders Opedal said his team received “good signs.”
The offshore wind sector administration targeting encourages other developers, including Shell and Total Energy, to cut or delay US projects, and the opedal shows the episode means Norwegian state-backed equiners rarely pursue other projects.
Speaking about how he navigated episodes of his career opedal, politically challenging, potentially expensive, and potentially expensive, Equiner’s US management said he was “actually trained for a similar scenario.”
Construction is already underway on Equiner’s 84 turbine, 2.1 gigawatt-style farm when the White House issued a surprise order in April to stop work on the project.© Shuran Huang/The Washington Post/Getty Images
“We were surprised, but we prepared,” Opedal said. It reminded me of a second-half phone call I received on the news while on a holiday in southern Norway.
Equiner quickly established two crisis teams. One is to lobby for an order reversal, and the other is to prepare for a complete shutdown. After an intervention from Norwegian finance minister and former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, Opedal flew to Washington to meet Kevin Hassett, head of the US National Economic Council.
“We wanted to lift orders in a sustainable way,” Opedal said. “The federal judge could reverse that, but that would still leave uncertainty.”
Instead, the company highlighted the human costs of halting already in progress projects. “If you stop a new offshore wind project, people won’t get jobs. But if you stop the execution, people will lose their jobs, and that’s a big difference,” he said.
But political negotiations elsewhere were equally important. Opedal said talks over a natural gas pipeline between New York and the White House played a “very helpful” role in unlocking the project.
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Trump has long sought approval of the constitutional pipeline. It was a billion-dollar project to transport gas from Pennsylvania fields to New York and New England, but state regulators were blocking it for environmental reasons. The scheme was cancelled in 2020.
According to Opedal, New York Governor Kathy Hochul resumed conversation. “The governor called me and said, ‘I think there’s an angle to talk to the administration about this,” he said. She called again at 4am on May 18th, broadcasting details of the meeting with Trump.
The next day, the Empire-like suspension order was lifted. A week later, the company behind the constitutional pipeline announced it would revive its plans.
Opedal described the event as a “roller coaster,” but said it would not derail relations with Equiners with the US, the Gulf of Mexico’s leading oil and gas producer.
However, he added: “We don’t expect that we’ll be doing anything to embark on a new offshore wind project.”
