US officials are drafting agreements to pay TotalEnergies about $1 billion to settle cancellation of its federal offshore wind leases, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Under the proposed terms, the Interior Department would cancel leases for two projects — Attentive Energy off New York and Carolina Long Bay off North Carolina — and the Justice Department would pay more than $928 million, covering the winning bids TotalEnergies made in Biden-era lease sales.
The French group formed a joint venture in October 2023 for Attentive Energy and paused development after Trump's November 2024 election victory; it won the Carolina Long Bay lease in 2022. The settlement commits TotalEnergies to abandon the wind farms and to invest in natural gas infrastructure in Texas. None of the parties responded to Reuters requests for comment.
Context
The roughly $1 billion TotalEnergies deal extends the buyback program that had reached nearly $4 billion as of 8 August following the RWE exit.