Despite its seeming reprieve from the Trump administration, Equinor reported a $995 impairment related to its Empire Wind offshore energy project, tied to both the plans for turbine arrays off New York and its South Brooklyn Marine Terminal project, which was to serve other Mid-Atlantic wind projects.
The setback “is driven by regulatory changes in the U.S., particularly related to that investment tax credits have been taken away for new developments,” Equinor CEO Torgrim Reitan told Reuters July 23.
In addition to Equinor’s own project, “we have a terminal, the South Brooklyn Marine terminal, where we had assumed two more developments than our own Empire Wind to pay for that. That is now unlikely," he told the news agency.
Empire Wind’s first phase planned at 810 megawatts nameplate capacity, would be 54 turbines when complete, tucked into the shipping approaches to New York Harbor. One of the earlier U.S. offshore wind projects, Empire Wind won its federal lease in 2017 under the first Trump administration.
In his 2024 campaign for a second term Trump promised to squelch all offshore wind projects “on day one” of his new administration, and in April 2025 Interior Secretary Doug Burgum pushed a stop-work order on the project.
One month later, the administration relented, allowing Empire Wind construction to resume after negotiations that included New York State officials agreeing to work toward approving new natural gas pipelines.
Tariffs are increasing project costs by an estimated $300 million, Reitan told Reuters. After the new impairments Equinor says the book value of Empire Wind is $2.3 billion. But with the Trump administration and Republican congress cutting off renewable energy tax credits, a planned future second phase of Empire Wind is on hold.
