Oil giant bp has teamed up with an offshore wind venture backed by Norwegian shipowner Knutsen OAS to develop offshore wind opportunities in South Korea.
As part of their agreement, bp has acquired a 55% stake in Deep Wind Offshore’s early-stage offshore wind portfolio, which includes four projects across the Korean peninsula with a potential generating capacity of up to 6GW.
South Korea is targeting almost 22% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2030 and is expected to become a leading offshore wind region.
Deep Wind Offshore, which was set up in early 2021 in partnership with compatriot utility Haugalanda Kraft/SKL, has four offices in South Korea.
It also leverages the Knutsen Group’s strong links in the country where it has been an active builder of LNG tonnage at South Korean yards since 2006.
Matthias Bausenwein, bp’s senior vice president of offshore wind, described South Korea as “an exceptional market to expand BP’s growing offshore wind footprint”.
“We are very happy to be working with a partner as strong as Deep Wind Offshore, which has managed to build a strong local team and develop these projects in collaboration with a variety of Korean stakeholders,” he said.
Deep Wind Offshore chief executive Knut Vassbotn said there was a “great fit” between its highly competent development team and the bp execution capabilities.
“We look forward to integrating our teams to realize the projects in a sustainable manner, in close collaboration with local stakeholders to bring both clean electricity to the country and opportunities to local supply chain and communities,” he added.
The permitting process for the four projects is already underway having installed wind measurement devices during 2021 and 2022.
Deep Wind Offshore and bp will now look to install additional wind measurement systems and secure electricity business licenses in the coming period.
This time last year bp teamed up with Japanese trading house Marubeni to target Japan’s growing offshore wind industry.
The two agreed to form a strategic partnership for offshore wind and potentially other decarbonisation projects, including hydrogen.
