Oman Supports US Crypto Firm To Reduce Natural Gas Flaring

Crusoe Energy, a Denver-based startup that pioneered minimizing gas flaring with cryptocurrency mining, earned $350 million in Series C investment that was participated by Oman Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund.

Flaring is the act of discharging into the atmosphere any gas that has accumulated in the pipelines or has otherwise gotten out of control. Even though this has been a normal procedure to minimize environmental and health risks, it is still being scrutinized because of the dangerous carbon emissions it produces during the burning process itself.

It also emerged that Oman’s sovereign wealth fund has taken an ownership investment in a US company that claims to assist fossil-fuel producers to reduce flaring by utilizing stranded natural gas to power cryptocurrency mining instead.

It is the company’s policy not to disclose the extent of its investments, according to Ismail Ibrahim Al-Harthi, a senior manager of technological investments, so nobody knows exactly how much was invested. Crusoe did not mention a number either.

When Crusoe Energy teamed up with ExxonMobil in March, they were working on a trial project that would feed Bitcoin miners with flared gas. In addition to Enerplus and Devon Energy, Crusoe Energy has a number of other customers. The first gas-for-Bitcoin trial project is set to begin in Oman in the next year.

Crusoe is one of North America’s largest bitcoin miners and has already set up shop in states like North Dakota, Montana, and Colorado, to name just a few. Up to 1700 gasoline vehicles might be taken off the road as a result of the company’s assertion that bitcoin mining can reduce CO2 emissions from flaring gas by up to 63%.