Oil firms turn energy to wind projects
Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Eni enter offshore farms
London — Big oil is starting to challenge the biggest utilities in the race to erect wind turbines at sea. Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Eni are moving into multi-billion dollar multi-billion-dollar offshore wind farms in the North Sea and beyond. They are starting to score victories against leading power suppliers including Dong Energy and Vattenfall in auctions for power-purchase contracts, which have developed a specialty in anchoring huge turbines on the seabed. The oil firms have many reasons to move into the industry. They have spent decades building oil projects offshore and that business is winding down in some areas where older fields have drained. Returns from wind farms are predictable and underpinned by state-regulated electricity prices. And fossil fuel executives want to get a piece of the clean-energy business as forecasts emerge that renewables will eat into their market. "It is certainly an area of interest for us because there are obvious synergies with the tradit...
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