- Exxon Mobil is considering becoming the latest oil and gas producer to sell its excess gas to Bitcoin miners
- Exxon would be the largest participant in the trial, which sees Bitcoin miners buying gas that would otherwise be burned off
- Several gas producers are piloting the same scheme
Gas and oil giant Exxon Mobil is considering selling waste gas to Bitcoin miners, becoming the fourth major oil producer to potentially get in on the act. Bloomberg reports that Exxon has an agreement with Crusoe Energy Systems Inc. to take gas that would ordinarily have been flared off from the Bakken shale basin to power mobile generators used to run Crusoe’s mining servers. Such a deal would be the second that Crusoe has in place in that region, having signed a deal with Houston-based Kraken Oil & Gas earlier this year.
Exxon Waste Gas Will Have a Purpose
Flaring is necessary when a gas producer pumps up too much for the capacity of the pipeline, leaving it with no choice but to burn off the excess. This is both wasteful, costly, and harmful to the environment.
This waste gas can be put to good use however when it is pumped across to Bitcoin mining operators who can use it to power their machines, and we’re not talking small numbers – the Crusoe/Kraken deal has seen the equivalent of 18 million cubic feet per month sent to the Bitcoin miners rather than being burned off.
Bakken Shale the First of Many?
According to Bloomberg, Exxon hasn’t signed off on the deal but is close to doing so, mainly because it will allow them to profit from a waste product. However, it will also take some of the pressure exerted by governments and environmental groups off them as they try to improve their carbon footprint. Bitcoin doesn’t really benefit from an ecological sense however, seeing as the waste gas still enters the atmosphere, just in a different form.
The company, which is the largest U.S. oil producer, is also supposedly considering similar pilots in Alaska, the Qua Iboe Terminal in Nigeria, Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale field, Guyana, and Germany.
