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* BP becomes 50% owner of 2 U.S. offshore wind projects
* Key step in BP's renewable energy expansion
* Equinor to book $1 bln capital gain from deal
* Empire, Beacon projects to power over 2 million homes
(Adds Equinor's profit from deal, detail)
By Nerijus Adomaitis and Ron Bousso
OSLO/LONDON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - BP entered the
offshore wind market on Thursday with a $1.1 billion deal to buy
50% stakes in two U.S. developments from Norway's Equinor
, a significant step by the oil firm towards its energy
transition goals.
The British oil and gas company has set itself a target of
increasing its renewable power generation capacity 20 fold over
the coming decade to 50 gigawatts (GW), a key pillar of its
strategy to slash carbon emissions..
"This is an important early step in the delivery of our new
strategy and our pivot to truly becoming an integrated energy
company," BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said in a statement.
European oil firms are under pressure from activists, banks,
investors and some governments to shift away from fossil fuels
and analysts say offshore wind farms are probably the quickest
way for them to scale up.
The deal with Equinor, which could be followed by further
joint expansion, makes BP co-owner of the Empire Wind project
off New York and Beacon Wind off Massachusetts, which could
together generate up to 4.4 GW - enough power for more than two
million homes.
Equinor expects to book capital gains of roughly $1 billion
from the transaction, an executive at the state-controlled firm
told Reuters.
"It confirms that our strategy to get early access to the
U.S. coast was right and it created the value," Equinor's head
of renewable energy Paal Eitrheim said.
The two companies are establishing a strategic partnership
for further growth in offshore wind in the United States, with
both bottom-fixed and floating facilities.
"The transaction is in line with Equinor's renewable
strategy to access attractive acreage early and at scale, mature
projects, and capture value," it said.
Equinor, which will remain the operator of the projects
through the development, construction and operation phases, said
the deal is expected to close in early 2021.
BP already has a large onshore wind business in the United
States with a capacity of around 1.7 GW, but has refrained in
the past from entering the offshore wind market.
The deal challenges any assumption that renewable projects
can't offer returns on the scale offered by oil and gas, and is
likely to increase the market's confidence in Equinor's offshore
wind business, Sparebank 1 Markets analyst Teodor Sveen-Nilsen
said.
"This is a platform for growth and we can do more together
than we could do alone," Equinor's Eitrheim said of the BP deal.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo and
Ron Bousso in London; Writing by Terje Solsvik; Editing by
Jacqueline Wong, Jan Harvey, Alexander Smith and David Clarke)
