Oil drillers and Bitcoin miners bond over natural gas reuters.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reuters.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Here is a preview of what to watch this week in the oil and gas markets.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the attributed sources and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rigzone or the author.)
Discipline. Infrastructure. Storage. What do these three words have in common? They will all likely figure prominently this week in the oil and gas markets, according to a trio of Rigzone market observers. To find out how, keep reading for more context.
Tom McNulty, Houston-based Principal and Energy Practice leader with Valuescope, Inc.: U.S. production will continue to increase, and it will be measured and efficient. I just spoke to one of my oilfield services clients, down in the Eagle Ford. He is seeing drilling activity to keep leases and to create cash flow. His customers are all exhibiting slower, cautious, and cost-effective discipline in their operations.
Oil drillers and Bitcoin miners bond over natural gas
On U.S. oil patches stretching along the Rockies and Great Plains, trailers hitched to trucks back up toward well pads to capture natural gas and convert it on the spot into electricity.
The trailers – carrying pipes, generators and computers – are called “mining rigs.” But their owners aren’t there to drill for oil. They are using stray natural gas unwanted by oil companies to power their search for another treasure: cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrencies are virtual coins exchanged without middlemen, such as central banks, to purchase goods and services. Extracting the currency from cyberspace, however, requires vast amounts of often-expensive electricity. Supercomputers must run constantly in a race against other “miners” to solve complex math problems in order to unlock digital vaults holding the currency.
Oil companies face pressure from investors and government officials to reduce emissions that lead to global warming. Sometimes they give the gas away for free to cryptocurrency miners; other times they sell it.