ConocoPhillips is now running a pilot programme in North Dakota’s oil-rich Bakken area. Instead of burning extra gas, a byproduct of oil drilling known as flaring, the company is selling it to a third-party Bitcoin miner for use as fuel. A ConocoPhillips spokesman indicated that the choice to get into Bitcoin mining mirrored the firm’s larger goal of lowering and “ultimately eliminating routine flaring as soon as practicable, no later than 2030.”
In a slide from a 2021 presentation, ConocoPhillips indicated that it has an “ongoing effort” to ensure that gas capture projects achieve 0% regular flaring by 2025. Frequent flaring, which occurs when mining firms strike natural gas deposits while drilling for oil, provides a one-of-a-kind and profitable answer to the problem of frequent flaring. ConocoPhillips did not say who the Bitcoin miner was or how long the preliminary trial had been running.
Crusoe Energy, a US-based oil and gas explorer, has also used Bitcoin mining to profitably reduce emissions, with roughly 60 data centres and Bitcoin mining devices fueled by diverted natural gas on its oil fields. According to an Argus media article, Crusoe Energy’s technology reduces CO2-equivalent emissions by up to 63 percent when compared to typical routine flaring.
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Crypto miners have been eager to discover new ways to capture more sustainable types of energy in response to publicly published complaints about Bitcoin mining, which mostly arise from environmental concerns.
