Europe’s leading turbine spinners Ørsted today posted first half results that see the Danish operators advancing steady state earnings by nearly 50%, to the krone equivalent of £1.3 billion.
Securing the contract to build Hornsea 3, at 2.852GW the world’s biggest offshore wind farm awaiting construction, was the half’s highlight picked out by group president and CEO Mads Nipper.
Consented in December 2020, Hornsea 3 is the biggest single phase of the trio of Hornsea projects, which together total 5.32 GW. Ørsted has a fourth stage in pre-application assessment, scoped like its neighbours for waves 70km off Grimsby.
By this December Hornsea 2 should be complimenting the output flowing since 2020 from Hornsea 1. Leading the world’s parc of wind farms already generating, the latter has seen stake-building in recent months by Greencoat Capital, TRIG and Octopus Energy Group, as lead owner Global Infrastructure Partners has sold shares.
Accruing only £184 million of profit in 2022’s opening six months, Ørsted’s new partnerships left the engineers’ headline EBITDA unchanged across new and existing activities, at the krone equivalent of £1.49 billion.
Nipper said the results now prompt Ørsted to increase its guidance for calendar 2022 by a further 1 billion krone, to an earning range equating to a ceiling of £2.5 billion.
That forecast excludes early-stage or non-continuing activities.
Adjusted group profits for the half dropped 16% to £682 million equivalent. Net debt nearly quadrupled, to £4.7 billion, but free cashflow servicing it rose to nearly £1 billion. That balanced cashflow from continuing operations retreating by a similar amount, to £0.26 billion.
Nipper was happy with the consolidation, hailing Hornsea 3 among the half’s strategic milestones. Others included Ørsted’s into Spanish onshore generation, and a deal to buy Ostwind, a developer, owner, and operator of land-based turbines in Germany and France.
“Very ambitious” blueprints for wind generation of clean electricity from both the EU and from US authorities put the firm on track to achieve 30Gw of operations by 2030, Ørsted’s leader declared.
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