COPENHAGEN, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Shares of Danish offshore wind developer Orsted jumped 6.1% on Tuesday after a U.S. court cleared the company to resume work on its nearly completed Revolution Wind project,
easing fears of massive financial losses.
Offshore wind developers have faced repeated disruptions to multi-billion dollar projects under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he finds wind turbines ugly, expensive and inefficient.
The company's lawsuit is one of several filed by offshore wind companies and states seeking to reverse the Interior Department's December 22 suspension of five offshore wind leases over what it said were national security concerns.
RESUMING WORK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
The suspension has also impacted Orsted's Sunrise Wind project, Equinor's Empire Wind near New York, and Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind facility.
"Now our focus is on safely resuming construction work as soon as possible and moving towards delivering reliable and affordable electricity to 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut," Orsted CEO Rasmus Errboe said in a statement late on Monday following the ruling.
The ruling echoes a September court victory when a judge rejected the administration's first attempt to stop the project. Both halts cited national security concerns that judges found insufficient to justify the disruption.
The ruling significantly reduces the risk of a complete cancellation of Revolution Wind that would have inflicted losses of approximately 20 billion Danish crowns ($3.12 billion), according to Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen.
Pedersen said the decision also raised hopes that a similar ruling would soon lift the construction halt on the company's larger Sunrise Wind project.
($1 = 6.4073 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik and Louise Heavens)
