TotalEnergies signed an agreement with the US Department of Interior (DOI) to transfer the French energy major’s North Carolina and New York offshore wind project leases to the DOI for $1 billion. As part of the agreement, TotalEnergies will recover lease fees paid and will invest an equal amount in the development of US oil and natural gas and LNG projects. The agreement marks the end of TotalEnergies’ offshore wind projects in the US.
“We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans' monthly bills while providing secure US baseload power today—and in the future,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
The North Carolina lease (Lease OCS-A 0545) is known as the Carolina Long Bay lease. TotalEnergies purchased the lease in May 2022 from a Bureau of Ocean Management’s (BOEM) auction for about $133 million. The project was expected to generate about 1 GW of power, enough to generate electricity to 300,000 homes.
The New York Bight lease (Lease OCS-A 0538) was also purchased in a BOEM auction in 2022 for $795 million. The project was expected to generate 3 GW of power, enough to generate electricity to nearly 1 million homes.
To fulfill its part of the agreement, TotalEnergies will invest $928 million in developing four trains at the Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas, as well as in upstream conventional oil projects in the Gulf of Mexico and shale-gas production.
“These investments will contribute to supplying Europe with much-needed LNG from the US and provide gas for US data center development. We believe this is a more efficient use of capital in the United States,” said Patrick Pouyanné, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of TotalEnergies.