Singapore’s Cyan prepares for offshore wind vessel market growth with Australian takeover
Singapore’s Cyan prepares for offshore wind vessel market growth with Australian takeover | Windpower Monthly
The board of MMA Offshore, an Australian marine services company, has recommended that shareholders approve a proposed A$1.03 billion (US$672 million) takeover by Singaporean vessel provider Cyan Renewables.
Cyan Renewables – a portfolio company of Seraya Partners, a fund manager focused on energy transition and digital infrastructure – plans to expand further into offshore wind with the acquisition of MMA Offshore, it stated.
It has proposed buying all of the shares in MMA Offshore with a deal that values the Australian firm at A$1.03 billion - a premium of 31% to the company’s average trading price in the 90 days up to 22 March.
The deal could close in mid-to-late July 2024, MMA Offshore stated. The Perth-based company also has offices in Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Dubai and the UK.
Cyan supplies vessels for offshore wind farm construction. It secured a 15-year charter deal with Siemens Gamesa last month, and has previously supplied its vessels to help the manufacturer maintain its turbines at Belgian offshore wind farms.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.