THE owners of the Walney Wind Farm are out of the oil and gas business.

Dong Energy has sold this part of its operations to Ineos, an Anglo/Swiss company with its headquarters in London.

This deal was worth £1bn and will allow Dong - which has its global headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark - to continue with its focus on being a firm based purely around renewable power.

Henrik Poulsen, the chief executive of Dong Energy, said: “Since the decision in 2016 to divest our upstream oil and gas business, we have actively worked to get the best transaction by selling the business as a whole, getting a good and fair price for it and ensuring the optimal conditions for the long-term development of the oil and gas business.

"With the agreement with Ineos we’ve obtained just that.

“The transaction completes the transformation of Dong Energy into a leading, pure play renewables company."

Investment bank JP Morgan acted as exclusive financial adviser to Dong Energy in connection with the transaction.

Dong is working on an extension to Walney. When complete, Walney Extension will have a capacity of 660MW, enough energy for 360,000 homes.

Combined with Dong's three existing Furness windfarms - Barrow, Walney Offshore, and West of Duddon Sands - total capacity will be sufficient for 950,000 homes.