ConocoPhillips, one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration companies is utilizing its extra gas to power Bitcoin mining.
According to a Tuesday report by CNBC, the company disclosed that it is currently running a pilot project in Bakken, an oil-rich region in North Dakota where it had been selling excess gas to a third party Bitcoin miner, instead of burning it off.
According to a representative from the firm, the decision to dive into the Bitcoin business was in line with the company’s objectives to reduce and ultimately eliminate routine flaring “as soon as possible, and no later than 2030”.
The company which operates in 14 countries has published various reports explaining its intention to tackle the emission problem caused by routine flaring in the “Lower 48” states, of which Bakken falls. It has also expressed a deep interest in partnering with technologies that potentially provide a solution to the incessant problem of carbon emissions.
Although the company did not disclose the bitcoin miner behind the business deal nor the terms of the Pilot project, it finds itself extremely lucky to have co-located a Bitcoin mine close to its facility. Oil and gas production companies have often been forced to burn excess gas when glitches occur to the transmission pipelines, in the process losing revenue and also posing a danger to the environment. ConocoPhillips is thus placed to save a lot of revenue from such burns, make profits, and more important rescue its carbon footprint in partnership with the Bitcoin miner.
With talk of carbon emissions being one of the hottest agendas on world environmental forums, Bitcoin proves to be an escape for oil and gas exploration companies, while also reducing its use of unsustainable energy sources. Already companies such as Denver-Based Crusoe Energy Systems and Russian-based oil company Gazpromneft are tapping into the flare gas crypto mining opportunity.
In the U.S., pro-crypto senators such as Ted Cruz and Texas Bitcoin Blockchain Council president Lee Bratcher have voiced concerns about the massive amounts of energy that is lost when natural gas from exploration in the Permian region is flared. They believe that such energy presents a huge opportunity for Bitcoin miners in texas.
“They are making their clients revenue through stranded energy bitcoin mining and solving the environmental challenge with flared gas at the same time,” Lee Bratcher has recently noted about Giga Energy Solutions, a Texas-based company that is already mining the cryptocurrency using stranded natural gas.
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