Ørsted is paying the high price of politics, suffering a record-breaking stock market crash after a major policy shift by the Trump administration. The Danish wind giant announced a $9 billion emergency fundraising plan to cope with the fallout, a move that sent its share price to its lowest point ever.
The policy shift involves a complete freeze on the US offshore wind market, enacted through a review of all permits and leases. This has crippled Ørsted’s financial strategy, which depended on the now-blocked mechanism of selling project equity to raise capital for development.
Rasmus Errboe, Ørsted’s chief executive, has called the situation “extraordinary.” He emphasized that the convergence of political opposition in the US and existing supply chain challenges created a crisis that left the company with no other choice but to seek massive new funding.
Despite the Danish government’s support for its national champion, the market remains deeply concerned. The crisis has exposed the vulnerability of the green energy transition to political whims and threatens to reshape the global renewable energy map for the worse.
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