Shell Offshore Wind Sale Could Top $1bn as Oil Major Hires Advisers

The Shell offshore wind sale is taking shape: the oil and gas major has engaged Bloomberg-reported advisers from Rothschild & Co. and PJT Partners Inc. to lead a disposal process that could fetch over $1bn, with the sale itself likely to take place in 2027. The process could begin as soon as the end of this year, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.

What makes this more than a routine divestment is the sheer scale of the reversal it represents. Shell spent years positioning itself as an oil major with genuine green electricity ambitions, with offshore wind as a central pillar. That strategy is now being systematically unwound, asset by asset, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.

Shell Offshore Wind Sale Follows a String of Exits

The current disposal comes after a run of retreats that together paint a consistent picture. Shell ditched plans for its ScotWind offshore wind sites. It has been divesting its European onshore renewables arm. It sold its Indian renewable power company Sprng Energy, which it bought in 2022 for $1.55bn.

The American exits have been particularly costly. According to Electrek, Shell sold its 50% stake in SouthCoast Wind Energy off the Massachusetts coast in March 2024. In October 2025, it took a $1 billion write-off on Atlantic Shores, the New Jersey project, while simultaneously seeking to monetise that stake. And in November 2025, Shell exited the MunmuBaram floating wind project in South Korea. Each exit alone might be explained away as portfolio optimisation; taken together, they represent a wholesale withdrawal from the asset class.

The broader strategic context is not complicated. Chief executive officer Wael Sawan has sought to cut costs and offload low-returning assets since taking over more than three years ago. Offshore wind, with its long development timelines, capital-intensive construction phases and, in the US market especially, brutal policy headwinds, has struggled to clear the return hurdles Shell now applies. The Atlantic Shores write-off makes plain what those hurdles cost when a project fails to clear them.

What the $1bn Valuation Actually Tests

The headline figure of over $1bn deserves some scrutiny before anyone books it as a clean win. Shell’s US offshore wind exposure has already absorbed a billion-dollar impairment. The assets now on the block are whatever remains of a portfolio that has been whittled down through years of divestment and write-off. Whether a buyer emerges at or above that price level depends heavily on which specific assets are included in the formal process and what contracted revenue, if any, underpins them.

Offshore wind buyers are not absent from the market: utilities, infrastructure funds and sovereign-backed developers have continued to acquire assets even as some developers retreat. But pricing power sits with the buyer in a transaction where the seller’s motivation to exit is well established and publicly documented. Rothschild and PJT will be working to create competitive tension; the Bloomberg reporting, by making the process public before it formally launches, does that job for the market.

The sale also raises the question of what Shell’s renewables footprint looks like once the transaction completes. The ongoing European onshore divestment and the Sprng disposal have already reduced the operational renewable base substantially. An offshore wind clearance would leave Shell with a low-carbon portfolio centred on gas, liquefied natural gas trading and a more limited set of power assets, rather than the diversified green electricity business the company was articulating before Sawan’s tenure began.

For ESG analysts tracking Shell’s Scope 1, 2 and 3 trajectory, the shift matters less for the operational carbon directly attached to wind farms (which is minimal) and more for what it signals about Shell’s appetite for the capital expenditure that genuine operational decarbonisation of its core business would require. Selling renewable generation does not reduce emissions; it reduces the optics of progress.

Bloomberg reported the process could begin before the end of this year, making the formal launch of that sale process the next concrete milestone to watch.