TotalEnergies Ditches Wind Farms for Texas LNG, White House Pays Up

A Billion Dollar U Turn

Well hello there. Walter White here reporting live from… wherever money changes hands I suppose. Word on the street – or should I say in the press release – is that TotalEnergies that French outfit just got a sweet deal from the White House. A cool $1 billion to ditch those pesky East Coast wind farms. "I am in the empire business," as I've always said and this looks like an empire sized deal for someone.

From Windmills to Wellheads

Seems they're trading in windmills for wellheads folks. Instead of chasing the wind they're chasing natural gas and LNG. That billion dollar investment is headed straight to Texas to those Rio Grande LNG plant trains and into the good ol' U.S. Gulf for some upstream conventional oil plus shale gas production. Remember sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make. And speaking of deals this one's a doozy. For a deeper dive read American Stocks Face New Challenges Strategist Signals Caution to understand the broader market implications.

Trump's Energy Vision

You know Trump never hid his feelings about those offshore wind developments. Always calling them expensive and ugly. Guess he got his way. This whole thing smacks of "stay out of my territory," doesn't it? The Department of the Interior is touting this as some kind of "landmark agreement." I'd call it a landmark shift in priorities myself.

National Security Play

With all the turmoil in the Middle East especially with Iran the U.S. is playing the energy security card. Being the world's top LNG exporter suddenly carries a lot more weight. TotalEnergies in a move that probably surprised no one pledged not to dabble in any new offshore wind projects stateside. It's all about "the national security concerns," don't you know? Gas is the name of the game now.

What the Bigwigs Say

Patrick Pouyanné the big cheese at TotalEnergies is all smiles apparently. He's quoted saying how pleased he is to "support the Administration's Energy Policy." Claims this move will help supply Europe with much needed LNG and even power those data centers. Seems like everyone's a winner here except maybe the wind turbine manufacturers. You see chemistry is… well it's the study of change.

Another Win?

And Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is calling this "yet another win" for Trump. He's laying it on thick calling offshore wind expensive unreliable and subsidy dependent. All that jazz. The thing is sometimes bad things happen to good people and the game is what it is. Just trying to stay out of the territory of the folks who make wind turbines.