A turbine blade is lifted onto a rack near the tower section at the Revolution Wind Project assembly site at State Pier in New London, Connecticut, USA, on Friday, October 24, 2025.
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Shares in Danish renewable energy giant Orsted rose nearly 5% on Tuesday morning, shortly after a U.S. judge allowed the company to resume work on its nearly completed Revolution Wind project.
In a statement, Orsted welcomed the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s ruling, saying the lawsuit “allows the company to immediately resume affected operations.”
The ruling is a legal setback for the pro-fossil fuel Trump administration, which moved to block the $5 billion Revolution Wind project.
Late last year, the White House halted five major offshore wind developments, including Orsted’s project off the coast of Rhode Island. Officials cited national security concerns identified by the Pentagon as the reason for the suspension.
Orsted filed a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s decision earlier this month, arguing that the lease suspension would cause “significant harm” to the Revolution Wind project.
At a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the court should “highly question the government’s true motives” for halting the project, according to Reuters.
“Do you want to stop everything at a cost of 1.5 million a day while you decide what you want to do?” Lamberth asked Justice Department lawyer Peter Thorstensen.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Michael Field, chief equity strategist at Morningstar, said while the U.S. judge’s decision was clearly welcome news for companies like Orsted and Danish wind turbine maker Vestas, he warned it added to the industry’s uncertainty.
“It’s definitely a win for these companies anyway. And they’ve been having a really hard time over the last year or so, so they can definitely take advantage of that,” Field said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
“But…the question is whether Trump finds a way around this or finds another way to attack these companies. So I’m not entirely celebrating right now,” he added.
Revolution Wind is a 50-50 joint venture between Orsted and Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables. Orsted and Skyborn Renewables said in a filing last year that they had already spent about $5 billion on the project.
Orsted stock was trading 4.5% higher at around 10 a.m. London time (5 a.m. Eastern time). Meanwhile, Vestas was last up about 1.6%.
norwegian stocks EquinorThe Empire Wind 1 project has also been affected, last up 2.7%. U.S.-listed Dominion Energy, developer of the mothballed Virginia offshore wind project, the largest of its kind in the U.S., was flat in pre-market trading.
