Posted on July 28, 2025
Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) shares waver between modest gains and losses after saying it booked $955M in impairments related to its U.S. offshore wind projects due to regulatory changes affecting the offshore wind industry in the country and increased exposure to tariffs.
CFO Torgrim Reitan said a combination of tariffs, the Trump administration’s changing its mind on developing offshore wind, and the removal of tax credits had affected the value of the large onshore terminal in South Brooklyn, built to serve offshore wind farm installations.
“It is those new offshore wind projects that drive the impairment, because 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,” Reitan told Reuters.
Out of the $955M impairment, $763M is related to Empire Wind 1 and its South Brooklyn Marine Terminal project, with the rest attributed to the lease of the Empire Wind 2 farm, the company said.
Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) will still receive tax credits for the first phase of Empire Wind, but not for the second phase, Reitan said, adding that tariffs, including on steel, had raised costs on the project by $300M.
However, Equinor (EQNR) said it will buy back up to $1.265B in shares, citing Q2 results that were helped by increased U.S. onshore gas production and higher prices, and declared a quarterly dividend of $0.37/share, although it did not propose an extraordinary dividend; a year ago, the company proposed a quarterly dividend of $0.35 and an extraordinary dividend of $0.35.
Q3 adjusted operating income fell to $6.53B from $8.65B in Q1, in line with a company-compiled consensus, and net profit was cut in half to $1.32B from $2.63B in Q1.
