Equinor has decided to leave the offshore wind market in Vietnam and close its office in Hanoi, following a review of its renewable energy portfolio and with the industry “facing significant headwinds”, a company spokesperson told Reuters .
The Norwegian state-owned energy company established an office in Hanoi in May 2022 to pursue opportunities within offshore wind. In September last year, Equinor appointed Jacques-Etienne Michel as its country manager for Vietnam.
On 2 November 2023, Equinor and PetroVietnam signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) , through which the two companies reconfirmed plans to collaborate within offshore wind that they set out in 2021 and expanded the scope of their collaboration to include low carbon solutions like hydrogen and ammonia.
The news on Equinor’s exit from Vietnam’s offshore wind comes a little over a year after Ørsted announced it was pausing offshore wind activities in the country at its Capital Markets Day in 2023.
At the company’s Capital Markets Day, Mads Nipper, Ørsted’s CEO, said the company continue to be extremely disciplined in bidding, choosing not to participate in Taiwan’s 3.1 offshore wind auction round as well as some of the US auctions held by that time (June 2023).
“And we also have recently decided to step down our market development activities in Vietnam, because we do not believe that compared to the other opportunities that we have, that Vietnam is a sufficiently attractive market. It’s still a really important supplier market. But for market development, we are pulling back from that, to prioritize other areas with higher value creation potential”, Ørsted’s CEO said in 2023.
Speaking to Reuters , Equinor’s spokesperson also noted that the industry was “facing significant headwinds lately” and that the company needed to be disciplined in its approach.
Vietnam has several nearshore wind farms in development and operation, and a 2030 offshore wind target of 6 GW, with the government aiming to reach between 70 GW and 91.5 GW by 2050.