The developers of one of the world's largest offshore wind farms announced the limited recourse financing for the project, having reached financial close in six months.
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Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm being developed 32 km north of Cromer off the coast of Norfolk, in the North Sea, England. It is owned by Dudgeon Offshore Wind Limited, a subsidiary of Statoil, Masdar and Statkraft.
The £1.3 billion long-term financing will fund the capital requirements of the 402-megawatt (MW) Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm, currently under construction 32 kilometres out to sea from the North Norfolk coast of East England.
The Mandated Lead Arrangers comprise The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd., a member of MUFG; BNP Paribas; Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank; KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH; Mizuho Bank, Ltd.; Abbey National Treasury Services plc (trading as Santander Global Corporate Banking); Siemens Financial Services; Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, London Branch; and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
Dudgeon is being developed by the Norwegian oil & gas company Statoil (35%), Abu Dhabi's renewable energy company Masdar (35%), and Norway's state-owned electricity company Statkraft (30%).
Dudgeon is the first UK offshore wind project to obtain financing under the UK government's Contract for Difference (CfD) scheme. The Project met its Milestone Requirement in May 2015.
Statkraft and Statoil are also participating in the financing through sponsor co-lending. Statkraft will finance its 30% share in the project, while Statoil will finance a share of 17.5%.
On schedule to begin commercial operations by the second half of 2017, Dudgeon will deliver annual production of 1.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, the combined output of 67 wind turbines.
That is sufficient clean energy to power an estimated 410,000 UK homes and displace 893,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
The project is already more than half-completed, with the first turbine monopile installed in early April, and construction of the wind farm's 1,000-tonne offshore substation under way. ■