Global law firm Clifford Chance has advised Masdar and China Resources Power on the merger of the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm Extension and the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm Extension projects in the UK. This will bring the two expansion projects under a joint ownership and delivery structure, enabling increased scale and combined efficiencies through an innovative approach to delivering on offshore wind expansion projects. The projects are extensions to the operational Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon offshore wind farms, which currently power around 710,000 UK homes.

The Dudgeon Extension Project is owned 35 percent by Equinor, 35 percent by Masdar and 30 percent by China Resources Power, whilst the Sheringham Shoal Extension Project is currently 100 percent owned by Equinor, with Equitix Offshore 3 Limited (co-owned by funds managed by Equitix and The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG)) and Macquarie Asset Management (via Macquarie GIG Renewable Energy Fund 1) having options to acquire a total of 60 percent interests at financial close.

The cross-jurisdictional, cross practice Clifford Chance team was led by partner Deniz Tas and senior associate Anthony Santangeli. The core team further consisted of Josephine Stefani (senior associate), Sam Bassingthwaighte (senior associate), Saud Aziz (associate) and Kirsty Jones (associate). Further support was provided by colleagues from teams in the Energy & Infrastructure and Regulatory groups. Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval.

This transaction builds on a number of other leading offshore wind transactions Clifford Chance worked on recently, such as advising Brookfield on its £1.74 billion acquisition of a stake in a UK offshore wind portfolio stake from Ørsted; advising Kansai Electric Power Co. on its agreement with Iberdrola for the Windanker Offshore Wind Project in Germany and advising TotalEnergies on its landmark acquisition of a stake in the OranjeWind offshore wind farm in the Netherlands. This experience provides us with the latest international insights and enables us to contribute to the continued development of the global offshore wind market.