UK oil and gas firm Orcadian has set out plans for an offshore data center powered by a natural gas power plant in the British North Sea.
The plant would run on gas supplied from the company’s Earlham and Orwell fields.
The company has commenced an assessment phase to develop the gas fields. Under the plan, gas produced at the sites would be burned on-site to generate power. Following this, the CO2 produced would be captured and pumped back into the Earlham reservoir for long-term storage. Orcadian claims that this approach works better than piping the gas to shore, as Earlham gas is 49 percent carbon dioxide, which the company said shows the reservoir can hold CO2 underground over long timescales.
The data center would be linked to a power station platform, with the first phase expected to support a 200MW data center hall. Orcadian said it could later add more power stations and data center halls, reaching more than a gigawatt of power without drawing on the national grid.
To facilitate the project, Orcadian is setting up a new subsidiary, Earlham Gigagrid Ltd, to run the project and plans to transfer its full ownership of the gas field license to the subsidiary. This move is subject to approval from the North Sea Transition Authority.
Orcadian said it estimates the Earlham site holds 114 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas, with redevelopment of the depleted Orwell field adding another 31 bcf. Gas from the two fields would be blended to reach an average methane content of 50 percent.
Orcadian said it expects hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, or neoscalers including CoreWeave, Nebius, Lambda Labs, Crusoe Cloud, and Vultr, to eventually build out the power station and data center. The company said Gigagrid is structured so that outside investors can invest in the project without diluting current Orcadian shareholders’ stakes.
Steve Brown, chief executive of Orcadian, said: “We believe that this development concept for Earlham, focused on generating low-carbon power offshore to supply an offshore data center, can be transformational for the value of our P2680 license.
“That is why we have established Gigagrid. Orcadian intends to develop the project opportunity, to invite proposals to participate from third-party investors, and at the right stage to invite participation in the project from among the hyperscalers and the growing band of Neo-scalers who may find the opportunity to expand the project to gigawatt scale attractive.”
Brown said the company will engage with the NSTA and other regulators to support the project’s delivery.
Orcadian Energy plc is a UK-based oil and gas exploration and development company. The data center development would be its first digital infrastructure investment.
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