Royal Dutch Shell Plc and its partners Eneco Holdings NV and Mitsubishi Corp. are seeking to sell a stake in two Dutch offshore wind-farm projects that may cost $1.4 billion to develop, two people familiar with the plan said.
The companies are looking to reduce their ownership in the Borssele III and IV wind farms by as much as 45 percent, according to the people who asked not to be named because they aren’t authorized to speak about it publicly. The fourth partner, infrastructure contractor Van Oord NV, is keeping its share of the project.
The move would allow the companies to scale back financial exposure to the wind farms and redeploy the cash in new projects with the potential for higher returns. Shell has said only that it is trying to draw in additional investors, refusing to detail what that may entail. Its strategy is to focus on developing the early stages of gigantic wind farms and avoid holding the assets as long term operations, which offers a steady but slower payback.
“This is part of a planned assessment by the consortium on how to best fund the project and future offshore wind projects for the long term,” Eneco said in a statement, which Shell said it and the other partners endorsed. “Offshore wind projects require substantial capital. We are in the energy transition for the long-haul.”
The project marked Shell’s first foray into large-scale offshore wind developments. Shell and its partners won a contract to build the facilities 22 kilometers (14 miles) off the port city of Zeeland in the Netherlands last December, beating 26 other bidders in a government auction for power-generation capacity.
With a combined capacity of 700 megawatts, the units may require investment of $1.4 billion by the time they are complete in 2020, according to estimates from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. By those calculations, a 45 percent stake may be worth roughly $630 million.
None of the companies have disclosed their specific stakes in the project or their outlook for the total investment required. One of the people familiar with the deal said Shell has 50 percent, Eneco 30 percent, and both Van Oord and Mitsubishi each have 10 percent.
The stake may be split and sold to multiple buyers, the people said. The companies are currently running the sale process and expect to wrap it up before the end of the year. One new equity partner has already been selected, according to one of the people.
— With assistance by Jess Shankleman
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
