By Avi Salzman

The White House's latest move to shut down an offshore wind project is having wide ripple effects because it ups the ante on what kinds of projects the Trump administration will halt.

The Interior Department halted work on the Revolution Wind project off Connecticut and Rhode Island late on Friday, citing unspecified "national security interests." Shares of Orsted, the Danish company building the project, plunged 16% in Denmark's Monday session.

Orsted isn't the only company exposed. Its 50/50 partner in the project is Skyborn Renewables, which is owned by a subsidiary of BlackRock. BlackRock stock was trading down 0.4% on Monday. Eversource Energy, a utility based in Boston, is also financially exposed. Its shares fell 3.9% on Monday, one of the biggest losers in the S&P 500. Eversource sold its stake in the project to the BlackRock subsidiary, but agreed to cover some construction overrun costs and other expenses.

If the project is abandoned, Eversource could be on the hook for the $745 million adjusted purchase price "plus a 6.5% internal rate of return," according to Jefferies analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith. Jefferies doesn't expect the project to be fully abandoned but sees it as a risk. Eversource cited a construction delay as a financial risk in its annual report.

BlackRock didn't provide Barron's with comment, and Eversource said it is "reviewing the Department of Interior's letter on Revolution Wind with respect to what, if any, impact it has on our onshore activities or potential financial impacts."

Other companies that could be impacted by the work stoppage include Siemens Energy, whose subsidiary makes the turbines. Siemens Energy stock was down 1.3% on Monday.

This isn't the first time the Trump administration has stopped an offshore wind project under construction with little explanation. It also halted a project being constructed by Norwegian energy company Equinor in April, though it eventually lifted the stop-work order. The halt led Equinor to take an impairment of almost $1 billion on the project.

The Orsted project is even more alarming to the industry because construction on it is much closer to being complete. Equinor had begun construction but hadn't installed any turbines yet. Orsted has installed 45 of 65 turbines and connected the project to the grid. It is now 80% complete and was expected to be up and running by the second half of next year. It's expected to provide enough power for 350,000 homes. The stop-work order imperils 1,000 jobs on the project, according to North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU). "This project isn't some pipe dream; it's real steel in the water and $1.3 billion in investment already on the ground," NABTU said.

Orsted says it is exploring its options, including the possibility of legal action. The company is in a particularly tricky spot because it is looking to raise about $9 billion through a rights offering backed by its largest shareholder, the Danish government. The bar for convincing investors to buy into the offering just got a lot higher.

It isn't clear what could resolve the Interior Department's stop-work order. The agency had no comment beyond the letter it sent to Orsted, which didn't specify the project's problems. In a statement to the Daily Caller, the agency said that offshore wind projects in general are "experimental and expensive" and "proven failures," implying that its concerns are not just about this particular project. Orsted says that a project it completed nearby called South Fork Wind has operated at a 53% capacity factor, "on par with the state's baseload power sources."

The administration's actions could leave other projects exposed, too. Additional companies that could be impacted by more offshore wind project shutdowns include Spanish utility Iberdrola and Virginia utility Dominion Energy. RWE, a German utility, already halted work on its offshore wind projects earlier this year, and BP and Shell have backed away, too.

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com

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August 25, 2025 13:35 ET (17:35 GMT)

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