DANISH group Dong Energy will tighten its grip on European offshore windfarm projects when it acquires offshore vessel owner A2Sea in a DKr700m ($131m) deal. Dong operates a number of offshore windfarms in the North Sea and offshore Britain and will gain four offshore construction units in this deal. Since 2000, A2Sea has become a leading contractor in the installation of offshore wind turbines and is working on two projects in the UK and one for Dong in Denmark. The investors in the company — Dansk Kapitalanlaeg, LD Invest Equity and Clipper Energy — agreed to sell their shares to Dong for DKr700m. Dong said the acquisition will help it industrialise construction and commissioning of offshore windfarms. A2Sea operates two 2001-built offshore installation vessels — Sea Energy and Sea Power.
It also owns 2008-built jack-up construction barge Sea Worker and Sea Jack, which was built in 2003. “The purchase enables us to make the installation of offshore wind turbines more efficient and realise our strategy of increasing the volume of power produced from renewable energy sources,” Dong chief executive Anders Eldrup said. The deal follows Dong’s purchase of 500 wind turbines from German manufacturer Siemens in March this year. A2Sea said it was working on the Horn Rev II windfarm project off Denmark, which Dong said was the largest in the world. It is also working on the Thanet windfarm off the north Kent coast and Robin Rigg energy development in the Solway Firth. Dong is building the Gunfleet Sands windfarms off the UK east coast. It expects to install wind turbines on the Walney windfarms off Liverpool and eventually on the huge London Array project in the Thames Estuary.