Statoil Buys Half of $1.4 Billion EON German Wind Project
Statoil ASA, Norway’s biggest oil company, bought 50 per cent stake in EON SE’s Arkona offshore wind farm, entering the German market and widening its renewable energy portfolio as it scales back its funding for traditional fossil-fuel projects. Statoil and EON will invest more than €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) in the project, which lies 35 kilometres (56 miles) off the German island of Ruegen, the Stavanger-based company said in an e-mailed statement. Electricity production is scheduled to start in 2019 and will power as many as 400,000 households, it said. Siemens AG will supply the turbines.
“There’s no getting around for the big utilities to gear up investments in renewable power,” said Christopher Rodler, an analyst at equity researchers Montega AG in Hamburg. “Financial clout and staying power is needed for offshore.”
The project is Statoil’s first wind-power venture outside the UK, where it holds a stake in the Sheringham Shoal wind farm, the company’s only commercial wind project in production. For EON, it is the second large-scale renewable power development announced in as many months and is part of a strategy to invest as much as €1.5 billion annually in new clean energy projects.
Source: www.renewableenergyworld.com