WIND IN THEIR SALES: The Interior Department announced the winners of its fifth offshore wind lease sale on Wednesday, which resulted in $92.7 million in winning bids.
The details: Norwegian energy company Equinor Wind won one lease at roughly $75 million, which consists of 101,443 acres off the coast of Delaware Bay. Virginia Electric and Power Company – which is owned by Dominion Energy – won the other lease at $17.7 million, which spans 176,505 acres and is 35 nautical miles from the Chesapeake Bay. Six companies had participated in the auction.
“At the start of the Administration, our nation had approved zero offshore wind energy projects,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a written statement. “Today, we have nine - enough to power nearly 5 million homes. This is what developing a clean energy transition looks like.”
Not that profitable: The sale was the first offshore wind sale in the region for a decade, but was the second least profitable offshore wind sale under the Biden administration. The least lucrative sale was an auction held last year, which resulted in one area receiving a bid of $5.6 million.
Counting up the stats: The leased areas have the potential to power over 2.2 million homes with clean energy, and gets the Biden administration closer to its goals of deploying 30 gigawatts of wind energy by 2030.
But note: The leases awarded today do not authorize the construction of offshore wind facilities. Rather, the lease allows for the companies to submit a project plan for BOEM's review, and further approvals will be needed down the road.
More to come: BOEM is expected to complete its lease sales for the Gulf of Maine and Oregon in the coming months before the year ends. Last month, however, the agency canceled a planned sale of offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Mexico due to a lack of participation.
Industry reaction: Still, some offshore industry players are calling for the advancement of both oil and gas projects, along with wind – and voicing support for a permitting proposal from Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that would look to advance both types of energy.
“This will be the first year without a federal offshore oil and gas lease sale since 1958. After this December, the Interior cannot hold any more offshore wind lease sales until another offshore oil and gas sale is held,” Erik Milito , president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said in a statement. “The current leasing reality is begging for a Congressional fix to provide much-needed regulatory certainty and normalcy for both offshore oil and gas and wind lease sales.”
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment writer Nancy Vu ( @NancyVu99 ). Email nancy.vu@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here . If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
NORD STREAM 2 BOMBING SUSPECT ESCAPES : A suspect in the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline linking Russia to Germany escaped into Ukraine before he could be arrested, according to Polish officials who received a German warrant for his arrest, Joel Gehrke writes.
“The man crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border at the beginning of July,” Anna Adamiak , a spokeswoman for Poland’s national prosecutor’s office, said Wednesday.
The man, identified as a Ukrainian diving instructor named Volodymyr Z. , is suspected of working with a diving team to place explosives on the controversial pipeline. Yet German authorities neglected to “include him in the database of wanted persons,” according to Polish authorities, which enabled him to leave the country without arousing suspicions at the border.
“Free crossing of the Polish-Ukrainian border by the above-mentioned person was possible because German authorities … did not include him in the database of wanted persons, which meant that the Polish Border Guard had no knowledge and no grounds to detain Volodymyr Z.,” Adamiak said.
The detonations, which erupted in September of 2022 as Polish, Danish, and Norwegian officials hailed the opening of a different pipeline as insulation against Russia’s threats to deprive Germany of gas in the coming winter, sparked a wave of international speculation and diplomatic posturing about the identities of the perpetrators.
The damage to the other Nord Stream pipelines gave rise to criminal investigations by multiple European governments affected by the incident. Sweden and Denmark closed their investigations without identifying a perpetrator amid reports that U.S. intelligence assessments pointed to “a pro-Ukrainian group” of saboteurs. Read more from Joel here.
MAVERICK FOR SALE?: An investment firm that owns Maverick Natural Resources is looking at a potential sale that could yield nearly $3 billion, Reuters reports – and would include the debt the company has amassed.
The Texas-based oil and gas producer, owned by investment firm EIG Partners, is collaborating with investment bankers at Jefferies on the sale, sources tell the publication. Potential buyers – which could include oil and gas producers, along with other investment firms – would have to inherit nearly $800 million in debt. No deal has been secured yet, a source cautioned.
The significance: A possible deal for Maverick would come as a new wave of mergers and acquisitions makes its way through the industry. Large energy producers are looking to buy up companies to expand their operations and obtain prime drilling sites, while providing a lifeline to companies that hold oil and gas assets. Read more on that here.
PODESTA CALLS PERMITTING BILL PROVISIONS “PROBLEMATIC”: White House Climate Advisor John Podesta declined to answer whether or not President Joe Biden would sign Manchin and Barrasso’s permitting reform deal into law, expressing concerns about some provisions of the bill, The Hill writes.
“There are a couple things in that bill we think are problematic, and we’ll discuss that with the relevant parties in both the House and Senate,” Podesta said during an event on Tuesday.
The official did not detail what those “problematic” provisions were, asserting that he wasn’t going to “negotiate in the room.”
Rather, “the real negotiating will happen in a lame-duck session” following the November election, he predicts.
Although he’s not showing his cards, a number of Democrats and environmental advocates, such as Sen. Ron Wyden , objected to the bill’s provisions that would look to advance fossil fuel projects and streamline approvals. Read more on that here.
STATE DEPT. LOOKS TO TARGET IRAN OIL EXPORTS: The State Department is looking to further squeeze Iran’s oil exports, PoliticoEU reports, following growing concerns about the possible fallout of the killing of a top Hamas leader.
A State Department spokesperson told the outlet that new efforts to potentially block Iran’s trade exports were on the table and “as Iran continues to escalate tensions in the region, we will work with partners to further pressure Iran and reduce their oil exports.”
Some background: The U.S. has tightened sanctions on the country’s crude exports, but it seems to have had minimal effect. Just last quarter, Iran’s oil sales increased by 30%, hitting a five-year high for fossil fuel exports. Reuters previously reported the country had worked to gain new customers in Oman and Bangladesh.
The State Department spokesperson asserted that the existing sanctions did hurt Iran, because “sanctions evasion is very costly—paying middlemen, laundering money, and so on. We assess that the Iranian regime receives only a fraction of the revenue from its oil sales as a result.”
The conflict here: The Biden administration has to play a difficult balancing act in being tough on Iran, while ensuring energy costs don’t jump ahead of November’s election. However, many observers are expecting Iran to strike back after Ismail Haniyeh , the political leader of Hamas, was killed in an explosion two weeks ago. Iran accused Israel of assassinating Haniyeh, and pledged a “harsh and painful response.” Read more on that here.
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