TotalEnergies has signed settlement agreements with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to relinquish its Carolina Long Bay lease (Lease OCS-A 0545) and its New York Bight lease (Lease OCS-A 0538), both awarded in 2022, along with its partners. As a result, TotalEnergies will no longer develop offshore wind projects in the US.
Under the terms of the settlement, TotalEnergies will recover the lease fees paid and will invest an equal amount in the development of US gas and power production and exports.
TotalEnergies' studies on these leases have shown that offshore wind developments in the US, unlike those in Europe, are costly and might have a negative impact on power affordability for US consumers. Since other technologies are available to meet the growing demand for electricity in the US in a more affordable way, TotalEnergies considers there is no need to allocate capital to this technology in the US.
“Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country's interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the US, in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of TotalEnergies. “Furthermore, these agreements, under which we will reinvest the refunded lease fees to finance the construction of the 29 million t Rio Grande LNG plant and the development of our oil and gas activities, allows us to support the development of US gas production and export. These investments will contribute to supplying Europe with much-needed LNG from the US and provide gas for US data centre development. We believe this is a more efficient use of capital in the US.”
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