When Orsted CEO's 'quiet Friday evening' met Donald Trump's war on wind
Rasmus Errboe says Empire Wind experience meant Orsted had playbook in place for stop work order that has since been overturned
Orsted CEO Rasmus Errboe revealed how a quiet Friday evening with his family was turned on its head when Donald Trump’s government dramatically halted the Revolution Wind project.
Errboe told a Danish business event Orsted had a “playbook” in place in case the US moved against the almost-completed Revolution following the government’s earlier salvo against Equinor’s Empire Wind.
“I was sitting with the youngest of my three sons watching TV, it was a quiet Friday evening. Then came a call from [Orsted’s] general counsel saying there was a stop work order in the US,” Errboe told the annual summit of Danish business group DI.
“The dynamic at home shifted a bit. It was a special situation. A project... which is 80% complete.
“We had a plan ready, a playbook, should this situation arise. We began executing it quickly. We got going after 45 minutes.”
The Orsted CEO said that Friday turned into “a very long evening” and the next few days were “a lot about creating calm so the team could execute. Filtering out the noise and focusing on the three or four important things. What made the situation particularly special was that we had just gone out to the market with our capital position.”
“We’re back up and running. That’s always been the focus,” Errboe told the event. “In the very first hours, the focus was on safety, and that we could shut down in a responsible way and be compliant with the stop work order. Then the focus shifted to restarting.
“We’ve had two tracks, a legal track and a dialogue track. The latter is also very intense and ongoing at the moment. With the ruling, we were able to restart immediately.”
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