Wind farm developer Orsted confident about strategy after Q1 profit rises

By Louise Rasmussen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Orsted, the world's biggest offshore wind farm developer, reported on Thursday a rise in first-quarter operating profit thanks to higher earnings from its offshore wind farms, and confirmed its full-year guidance.

The offshore wind industry has been struggling with rising inflation, interest rate hikes and supply chain delays.

Following a strategic review of its business, Orsted, which is 51%-owned by the Danish state, trimmed in February its investment and capacity targets, paused dividend payouts, and its finance and operations chiefs stepped down.

"I am confident that we are on track to deliver on our business plan going forward," CEO Mads Nipper told reporters.

Group profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and excluding new partnerships rose 8% from a year earlier to 7.49 billion crowns ($1.08 billion), roughly matching a mean forecast of 7.44 billion in a poll of analysts provided by Orsted.

Orsted, which operates and develops wind farms, said profit from offshore farms grew 18% to 6.93 billion crowns helped by higher wind speeds and a ramp-up of power generation at its Greater Changhua 1 and 2a farms in Taiwan, and South Fork off New York State.

Its shares were up 1.5% at 1009 GMT, taking a rise since a seven-year low in October to nearly 60%.

"We remain focused on project execution and on de-risking the continued supply chain challenges in the industry," Nipper said in a statement.

Orsted repeated a forecast for full-year EBITDA excluding new partnerships of between 23 billion and 26 billion crowns.

($1 = 6.9582 Danish crowns)

(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Essi Lehto, Anna Ringstrom, Tomasz Janowski and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)