Ørsted shareholders including Equinor are voting today on whether to back a $9.4bn rights issue to help the Danish utility shore up its financial position. The move comes amid hits to US projects including Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, as well as wider industry headwinds.
Equinor faced troubles in US offshore wind earlier this year, but it is Ørsted that has been the highest-profile victim so far of President Trump’s hostility to ocean-based wind turbines.
This morning, the Danish utility is holding an extraordinary general meeting to gain support from shareholders, including Equinor, to raise around DKK60bn ($9.4bn) in a rights issue. Ørsted is seeking the funds to shore up its balance sheet and put it on a more stable footing.
The company’s share price last week reached a five-year low of DKK173.40 ($27.19), which is 87% below its high of DKK1,335 in early 2021. But back then things were very different. The Biden administration had just come to power in the US with grand ‘green’ plans; Ørsted was benefitting from a Covid-era rush for renewable energy assets; and offshore wind business cases had not been hit by inflation and supply chain disruption.
The market has since changed dramatically, and Ørsted’s reliance on offshore wind and its exposure to the US have put it in a difficult financial position. But one positive is that its rights issue is attracting interest from key backers including Norwegian giant Equinor, which is set to invest $939m to retain its 10% stake. This shows that major energy players still have faith in the Danish company’s strategy.
Ørsted announced the rights issue on 11th August to boost its capital structure and improve its financial flexibility, while helping it fund increased capital expenditure for the construction of its 924MW Sunrise Wind project off the coast of New York. Ørsted had previously planned to raise funds by selling a 50% stake in the project, but was unable to. Construction is underway and commissioning is scheduled for 2027.
But Sunrise, like all offshore wind farms being built in the US, is facing an unprecedented assault from the Trump administration.
For example, on 22nd August, Trump ordered Ørsted and joint venture partner Skyborn Renewables, which is part of Global Infrastructure Partners, to stop building the 704MW Revolution Wind project. Trump made the stop-work order via the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), but it has hit the utility hard as Revolution Wind is 80% complete with all offshore foundations installed as well as 45 of its 65 turbines.
Both of these events have worsened the company’s long-term share slump. Its shares fell 30% on 11th August following its announcement of the rights issue, while the stop-work order drove the share price lower on 25th August to 44% below its monthly peak.
Yet if there is any company that understands Ørsted’s Trump-era travails, it is Equinor.
In April, the Trump administration halted construction at Equinor’s 810MW Empire Wind with a stop-work order from BOEM, but that order was lifted on 19th May enabling the utility to resume construction. Ørsted will hope for a similar U-turn. The change at Empire Wind came after warnings from offshore developers and other investors that stopping infrastructure projects that are fully permitted and being built is only going to undermine the US as a location for infrastructure investment.
But the federal government has evidently not heeded this warning.
Delays to offshore wind permitting under the Trump agenda have also stalled work on Avangrid’s 800MW New England Wind and the 1.2GW SouthCoast Wind by Ocean Winds, as the developers are unable to secure the final permits that they need to proceed.
In addition, on 29th August, the Trump administration announced it is going to cancel $679m of planned investments in 12 port upgrade projects to support the growth of US offshore wind. This is the type of assault that those in the industry expected during the first Trump presidential term between 2017 and 2020, but only experienced in the latter days of that administration with delays to the pioneering Vineyard Wind scheme.
As a result, those in the industry may have been over-confident that Trump’s second term would not be quite so damaging as it is, despite his pledge during his campaign to stop offshore wind “on day one”.
The anti-wind rhetoric is not confined to Trump either. Last week, when announcing the end of the $679m port upgrades funding, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that “wasteful wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalising America’s marine industry”.
Duffy also blasted Biden’s “Geen New Scam agenda” and said Trump was focused on “real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects”.
Ørsted will hope the rights issue gets it back on track and shows its projects are underpinned by reality. The company went big on growth in the nascent US offshore wind sector in 2015 because of supportive policies of President Obama; stayed positive during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2020 thanks to the relatively benign energy agenda; and benefitted under Biden. Trump is now seeking to wreak havoc on offshore wind this term and is doing an effective job of that.
Yet the presence of Equinor in its rights issue should be heartening to Ørsted. After all, Equinor was able to turn around the stop-work order at Empire Wind 1, so may be able to offer insights that help protect projects such as Revolution and Sunrise. Equinor said it wants “closer industrial and strategic collaboration”.
The rights issue also has support from Norges Bank Investment Management, which owns 3.17% of Ørsted and said it would vote in favour of the financial restructuring.
We must also note that Ørsted’s problems cannot simply be laid at the door of the White House. The company has struggled in the UK too and, in May 2025, it ended work on its 2.4GW Hornsea 4 project in the North Sea despite winning support for it in the UK government’s latest Contracts for Difference allocation round in September 2024.
But despite the challenges in the US and with some tender regimes, it would be wrong to give up on offshore wind. Ørsted’s troubles mean one of the sector’s bellwether firms is under pressure and that should act as a warning for a company that goes almost ‘all in’ on any sector, but the support for the company shows that both it and the offshore industry still command confidence. For now at least.
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