A global energy corporation based in France has ceded leases off North Carolina and New York, where it planned to spend nearly $1 billion to build offshore wind turbines, back to the U.S. Department of the Interior and will instead redirect that investment into natural gas projects in Texas.
The “landmark agreement” was jointly announced by the department and TotalEnergies in Washington on March 23 and confirmed by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné during a press conference at the 44th annual CERAWeek by S&P Global conference at the Hilton Americas-Houston.
Burgum said much of TotalEnergies’ offshore wind investments were tied to Biden-era “green energy” subsidies rather than direct power generation, forcing U.S. taxpayers “to pay for energy sources twice.”
“They were paying for it in terms of high utility bills, but they were all paying for it in terms of the taxpayer subsidies,” he said.
Under the agreement, the department will reimburse TotalEnergies “dollar for dollar” for the $928 million it spent on securing the leases, much of that placed in bonds required to develop federal lands, in exchange for the company agreeing to reinvest that money into a Texas LNG project it was already developing.
The vacated offshore leases were acquired in 2022. They are in the Carolina Long Bay area off North Carolina and in the New York Bight off Long Island.
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