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Sanctioned Russian Oil Giant Gazpromneft Partners with BitRiver to Mine Bitcoin -Breaking

Russian Oil Giant Gazpromneft Partners to Mine Bitcoin with BitRiver

Gazpromneft (MCX:), is a subsidiary state-owned company Gazprom. It partners with BitRiver (BTC) to create mining infrastructures at oil fields.

Russia holds approximately 11% global processing power for creating new Bitcoin coins. Russia is also the third most important crypto-mining nation. Gazpromneft and BitRiver signed a two-year agreement to provide them with the energy resources they need to continue their crypto mining operation.

After Russia launched a large-scale war against Ukraine, Gazprom was included with BitRiver in the list of sanctioned companies.

Exploiting Flared Gas to Mine

The attention to flared-gas miners has increased over the past one year. Crusoe Energy, a startup that pioneered Bitcoin mining using waste natural gas as a source of power, was supported by Abu Dhabi as well as Oman. ExxonMobil, the oil giant (NYSE:), is looking into ways to harness North Dakota’s oil resources to power Bitcoin mining.

Flared gas mining allows oil producers to make electricity from methane gas that was liberated during drilling. The gas is usually burned to create electricity.

It provides electricity at a low cost or even free for miners. Power required for mining rigs are one of cryptocurrency mining’s most costly costs.

“Over the next two years, BitRiver intends to implement projects to create its own data centers for power-intensive computing with power scaling up to 2 gigawatts, including associated petroleum gas, which will additionally provide high and stable power consumption,” said Igor Runets, founder and CEO of BitRiver, in the statement.

Runets stated that Gazpromneft will help the company build infrastructure for mining in Russia.

Shady Players

BitRiver, Russia’s largest cryptocurrency mining company is managed by its local subsidiary. It has over 300 megawatts data centers. BitRiver became the first crypto mining company sanctioned under US sanctions against Russia on April 20. The sanctions are unfair and anti-competitive. BitRiver claims that it continued operating as before.

Government-owned Gazprom has the gas monopoly in Russia and is the world’s 10th-biggest oil producer. This company has been involved with large-scale projects like the Nord Stream and South Stream trans-border pipelines which transport gas from Russia into Europe. The CEO of Gazprom has close ties to Putin’s regime and was included in the sanctioned Russian oligarchs list.

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