US Off Shore Wind Prospects Looking Even Shakier With Ørsted Surprise This Morning

All I can say is ‘let ‘er blow’!

The  Trumpian cyclone is hitting the Green grifting scams hard and this morning’s kind of shock announcement from major offshore developer and one of my favorite villains, Danish firm Ørsted, has knees quaking.

Orsted plunges 27% as it plans $9.4 billion rights issue after ‘adverse’ turn in U.S. market

KEY POINTS

Shares of Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, plummeted on Monday morning after a surprise rights issue.

The company said the move was being made after its… pic.twitter.com/FCemS2qR7o

— Protect Our Coast NJ (@njcoast_protect) August 11, 2025

What’s happened is that the environment for wind developers, in the United States particularly, is now so unfavorable, thanks to the outright hostility of the Trump administration and the incoming restrictions passed in the Big Beautiful Bill, that they are having to do some ’emergency’ financial rejiggering.

Orsted shares crashed more than 25% on Monday morning, after the wind farm developer said it plans a 60 billion Danish kroner ($9.4 billion) rights issue, following a “material adverse development” in the U.S. market.

The company said this turn of events left it unable to raise funds from a planned partial divestment of its Sunrise Wind project off the coast of New York.

Given the market conditions, Orsted’s board of directors decided to end the process of selling a stake in Sunrise Wind, which would have provided the “required strengthening” of its capital structure to support its investment and business development programs.

Orsted — the world’s largest offshore wind developer — will be offering existing shareholders first refusal on the new shares under the planned move, which is being backed by the Danish State, the company’s largest shareholder.

Ørsted is being forced into a ‘rights issue’ to fundraise, which means (according to what I’ve found as far as a definition) that the company is offering new shares to existing stockholders to beef up the bottom line.

A Rights Issue is where existing shareholders are given the opportunity to buy a set number of new shares in the company they own. These new shares are often available at a discount to the existing share price, to encourage investors to take part.

The money raised from the sale of new shares could be used for any number of purposes – it could be to buy a rival, invest in a new product or even pay down debt to shore up a creaky balance sheet.

See what happens when they lose government handouts? They cannot stand on their own.

This is all happening thanks to a planned offshore project known as ‘Sunrise Wind,’ which was to be built off of Montauk Point on Long Island, New York. It was only a year ago that Ørsted was proudly announcing that it had acquired the entire project from Eversource Energy, complete with all federal permits and an OREC in place.

Further to our announcement from 24 January 2024, and following the successful award of Sunrise Wind in the New York 4 solicitation for offshore wind capacity, Ørsted has now completed the acquisition of Eversource’s 50 % share of Sunrise Wind, a 924 MW offshore wind farm located off the coast of New York.

The purchase price at closing to acquire Eversource’s share of Sunrise Wind is USD 152 million. At signing in January 2024, the transaction was valued at USD 230 million, and this revised closing figure reflects adjustments made due to lower actual versus forecast CAPEX spend between signing and closing.

With the closing of the transaction, Ørsted has assumed full ownership of the project, which has all federal permits in place and recently signed an OREC (offshore wind renewable energy certificates) contract with New York’s energy agency, NYSERDA at USD 146 per MWh for 25 years. The final investment decision for the project was taken in March this year.

In January of 2024, while still partnered with Eversource, Ørsted had already petitioned the New York Public Service Commission for a 27% rate increase on what’s known as the ‘offtake contracts’ that had already been signed for Sunrise Wind. It would have jacked the electricity rate produced once the farm was built (remember, there’s not a single pylon in the water yet) to $139.99 MWh. The PSC denied them the increase.

But by this January, the company was already taking a $1.7B – that’s billion with a ‘B’ – markdown on the project, which had nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with materials costs, interest rates, and financing issues. Costs were skyrocketing even before the new administration took over, and state governments were beginning to balk at the demands for ever higher utility rate agreements to cover the costs.

Offshore wind developer Orsted (ORSTED.CO), opens new tab on Monday posted an impairment charge of 12.1 billion Danish crowns ($1.69 billion) in the fourth quarter, citing a delay and higher costs for its Sunrise Wind project, as well as higher U.S. financing costs.

The company said it had reassessed the 924-megawatt offshore wind project, situated about 30 miles east of Montauk, New York, to include delays and increased costs, which would lead to an impairment of 4.3 billion crowns in the fourth quarter.

…The expected commissioning of Sunrise Wind has been delayed into the second half of 2027, Orsted said, adding that project costs had increased in particular with regard to the monopile foundations to keep fabrication and installation on track.

Orsted also said higher U.S. financing costs had hurt its U.S. portfolio, primarily its offshore wind projects, leading to an impairment of 4.3 billion crowns in the fourth quarter.

By this April, there were already whispers that the project was doomed, and now this shocker today, which, if they raise the financing, is worth half of the company’s market cap.

It’s almost as if wind power is uneconomical, unsustainable, and does not work … hmmmm

— keithbacker (@keithbacker) August 11, 2025

I don’t know that I’d be buying fever dreams, but that’s just cynical me.

Orsted was ranked the #1 most sustainable company in the world in 2020. The only thing it had going for it was its PR bullsh*t and now that’s gone. Orsted went out of its way to promote climate fear in its financial reporting – dangerous, fraudulent grifters. Now sinking.

— Brendan Long, CFA (@BrendanWLong) August 11, 2025

Now, the new Trump administration was only the final mercy blow to this foul enterprise. As you can clearly see, the entire grift was falling apart of its own accord for close to a year and a half before Trump ever took office. Costs exploded, the company had its own devastating warranty and material issues to deal with, and state utility regulators became increasingly squeamish about foisting ungodly rate increases on their residents to satisfy offshore developers’ extortionate demands.

Something had to give when there was nothing left on the table but for the wind industry to prove itself. And it couldn’t.

It’s truly gobsmacking how suddenly, after all the Green dreams, hundreds of billions of dollars, and clouds of unicorn farts blown, market analysts are finally asking?

For a ‘business plan.’

…“The company had previously communicated a DKK70-80bn disposal plan, and the quantum of the rights issue (46% of the market cap) is very large,” they explained. “That said, in a high rates environment, the offshore wind business model is far less viable and dependent upon equity. We would look for a business plan post rights issue.”

Can you imagine?

I guess this might mean the Green magic turbine is gone, huh?

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