Shell sells partial stake in Dutch wind farm to Switzerland's Partners Group

[AMSTERDAM] Swiss investor Partners Group Holding AG said on Monday it had taken a 45 per cent stake in a 700 megawatt (MW)offshore wind project in the Netherlands, buying partial stakes from Shell, Mitsubishi and Eneco.

Terms of Partners Group's participation in the "Blauwwind II" consortium were not disclosed.

Project leader Shell, which last month put together a 13-bank consortium to provide 1 billion euros in funding to build it, cut its stake to 20 per cent from 40 per cent.

Eneco, which disclosed on Monday it had agreed to buy 50 percent of the output from Borssele 3 and 4, cut its stake in ownership of the project to 10 per cent from 20 per cent.

Shell has said it intended to continue investing in major offshore wind projects, arranging the highest-risk financing phase, and then disposing of some or all of its stake once funding has been arranged and there are sufficient purchasing agreements in place for energy produced.

On Dec. 21, the Dutch government confirmed that several companies had bid in its newest 700 MW offshore project, which was launched with no subsidy offered for the electricity they will produce. Participants were not identified.

The winner of the Hollandse Kust Zuid auction will be announced in mid-March. The auction is the third in a series of five Dutch tenders to build offshore wind farms with a total capacity of 3,500 MW by 2022.

So far, only Swedish energy company Vattenfall and Norway's Statoil have publicly disclosed their participation in Hollandse Kust Zuid auction.

REUTERS