OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian energy firm Equinor will submit a proposal to pre-qualify for Norway's first offshore wind auction, the company's CEO Anders Opedal told Reuters on Friday.
Equinor has formed a consortium with Germany's RWE (LON:0HA0) for Soerlige Nordsjoe II, an area in shallower waters close to the maritime border with Denmark, where Norway is offering 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity.
"At the moment we are working to be as competitive as possible in this," Opedal told Reuters on the sidelines of the company's third quarter earnings presentation.
"It starts with the pre-qualification and then we will see what happens after that."
Norwegian lawmakers in June agreed to increase subsidies offered for Soerlige Nordsjoe II by 53% to 23 billion Norwegian crowns ($2.05 billion) to reflect global supply chain cost increases and inflationary pressure.
Oslo's offshore wind plans have seen some delays to fine-tune requirements with the deadline for submitting application to pre-qualify at Soerlige Nordsjoe II now set for Nov. 15.
The areas on offer, which also include the Utsira Nord site suitable for up to 2.25 GW of floating wind, have garnered interest from the majority of Europe's leading developers, including Orsted, TotelEnergie, BP (LON:BP) and Shell (LON:RDSa).
However, the Seagust consortium including Sweden's Vattenfall has announced it is no longer planning to participate, arguing the current subsidies offered are not enough.
"We see that the return on the investment would be too low to meet our requirements," Seagust CEO Simen Elvestad told Reuters earlier in October.
The consortium still expects to participate at Utsira Nord, where the deadline has been postponed indefinitely to ensure the process will comply with the competition rules of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
($1 = 11.2140 Norwegian crowns)