Oil and gas operators in the Rockies region are crypto-mining with what would otherwise be flared gas. Here’s how it works and the monetizing-while-greening opportunity from Cully Cavness, president and co-founder of Crusoe Energy.
Crusoe Energy provides oil and gas companies with a fast, low cost and simple solution to natural gas flaring through the company’s patented digital flare mitigation systems.
“Globally, there is more than five trillion cubic feet of gas flared annually,” Cavness said during Hart Energy’s recently held DUG Bakken and Rockies virtual conference. “And if that gas was captured and converted into electricity, it would be approximately enough electricity to power all of the continent of Africa, where more than one billion people live.”
On the other side of the equitation is data centers, according to Cavness who went on to explain that the global data center fleet consumes more electricity than the economy of Germany, which is the largest industrialized economy in Europe.
“Our insight at Crusoe was on one side of this equation is this very energy intensive user that is looking for lower costs and lower environmental impactful ways to source that energy,” he said of Bitcoin. “On the other side is an industry that is wasting a lot of energy and doing so in a very environmentally harmful or at least inefficient way—flaring is certainly not a perfect process.”
What Crusoe developed is a solution the company calls digital flare mitigation. Cavness said essentially Crusoe deploys modular mobile data centers to the oil field along with power generation systems that operate on rich gas, meaning that the gas does not need to be processed before it can come into the generator. It is essentially wellhead gas, he noted.
“What we do is convert the stranded, flare gas into electricity through those rich firm generators,” he said. “Then we use that electricity to power the modular data centers and then we use the data centers we connect to the outside world with anything from wireless internet using microwave towers, satellite internet and in some cases we build our own fiber optic cables.”
Recommended Reading
Murphy Shares Drop on 4Q Miss, but ’25 Plans Show Promise
2025-02-02 - Murphy Oil’s fourth-quarter 2024 output missed analysts’ expectations, but analysts see upside with a robust Eagle Ford Shale drilling program and the international E&P’s discovery offshore Vietnam.
The Private Equity Puzzle: Rebuilding Portfolios After M&A Craze
2025-01-28 - In the Haynesville, Delaware and Utica, Post Oak Energy Capital is supporting companies determined to make a profitable footprint.
RWE Slashes Investment Upon Uncertainties in US Market
2025-03-20 - RWE introduced stricter investment criteria in the U.S. and cut planned investments by about 25% through 2030, citing regulatory uncertainties and supply chain constraints as some of the reason for the pullback.
Buying Time: Continuation Funds Easing Private Equity Exits
2025-01-31 - An emerging option to extend portfolio company deadlines is gaining momentum, eclipsing go-public strategies or M&A.
Diamondback Energy Appoints Industry Veteran Holderness to Board
2025-02-04 - Diamondback Energy has named Darin G. Holderness, who founded and served as CFO at P&A Exchange LLC and CFO at ProPetro Holding Corp. as a board of directors at the Permian Basin E&P.
Comments
Add new comment
This conversation is moderated according to Hart Energy community rules. Please read the rules before joining the discussion. If you’re experiencing any technical problems, please contact our customer care team.