A worker welds steel for the construction of the 262-foot Eco Edison vessel at a shipyard in Houma, Louisiana.
Photographer: Bryan Tarnowski/BloombergAn American Oil Hub Is Pivoting to Offshore Wind
Along the Louisiana and Texas coasts, experienced oil and gas workers are happily picking up jobs in the growing wind industry.
Every morning, more than 600 workers clock in at the Louisiana shipyard where the Eco Edison, the first US-built vessel to service offshore wind farms, is under construction. At quitting time, a parade of pickups and dusty sedans forms a traffic jam on the road back into town, past buildings that serve the long-dominant oil and gas industry.
This is just one slice of the energy transition reshaping the Gulf of Mexico region, which is increasingly dotted with offshore wind projects. In February, the Biden administration announced the first-ever sale of offshore wind leases in the Gulf, off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Dominion Energy Inc. is spending $500 million on the first US-built installation vessel, the 472-foot Charybdis, in Brownsville, Texas; and hundreds of people are working on the first US-built substation near Corpus Christi. In Louisiana, where the National Football League team wears black because that’s the color of oil, new companies and jobs are sprouting up to support the nascent $100 billion industry.