The biggest windfarm operator in the UK is considering selling its oil and gas business, four decades after it was set up to manage Denmark’s North Sea oilfields.
Dong Energy, which is majority owned by the Danish government, said it had appointed JP Morgan to perform a strategy review that could result in the sale of the oil and gas business.
Offloading oil assets would result in the company, whose initials stand for Danish Oil and Natural Gas, focus on wind power instead, completing its transformation from fossil fuels to renewables.
Dong did not say whether selling its oil and gas operations would result in a change of name and added that it had yet to decide on the division’s future.
The company floated on the Copenhagen stock exchange this year, saying it would use the flow of cash from oil sales to fund ongoing investment in renewable energy projects.
But on Wednesday, Dong said it might now look to raise funds more quickly by selling the division.
Any sale could help it cement its position as the UK’s leading exponent of wind power.
Dong has stakes in windfarms that can produce more than 2.2GW in total, equivalent to about 4% of the UK’s predicted peak demand of 52.7GW during cold weather.
It has plans to add a further 1.5GW of wind power capacity, including the Hornsea 1 project 55 miles off the coast of Grimsby, which would be the world’s largest offshore windfarm.
Source: theguardian.com
