Gazprom Neft and the BitRiver mining startup announced a cooperation to mine cryptocurrencies using associated gas at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Gazprom Neft will generate power by burning related petroleum gas under the terms of the deal. The data centers that BitRiver will deploy will be powered by electricity. The primary goal of such data centers will be to extract cryptocurrency, although some of the capacity could be used for other IT initiatives.
Gazprom Neft already has a similar infrastructure in three Russian areas, according to the press release. Simultaneously, the company does not work with digital currencies because it is not part of its business plan. The sale of generated electricity to BitRiver data centers, on the other hand, fits right into the Gazprom Neft model.
“BitRiver intends to implement projects to create its own data centers for energy-intensive computing with an increase in capacity up to 2 GW in the next two years, including using associated petroleum gas, which will ensure high and stable power consumption,” said Igor Runets, BitRiver’s founder and CEO.
It should be mentioned that Russian oil corporations presented a project including the extraction of cryptocurrencies in oil fields using associated gas to the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Digital Development, and Central Bank in the fall of last year.
