Well that's....interesting. My first impression was that you know bitcoin has jumped the shark when a giant mega-corporation like Exxon Mobil gets into the business of mining it. Fortunately my first impressions of things are often wrong.
Few weeks back they also set off their business in Russia due to the war and it was really bold decision as they were having strategic business over there but still they opted out and stand with Ukraine in this time.They can supply to other nations to recover the loss.But yes as per reports they are stepping into bitcoin mining by using the excess waste gas to mine bitcoin and get profits over it.
If this article is true and Exxon really does get into the BTC mining business, it probably would be profitable for them. But one problem I see is that they have so much cash they can throw at the operation that they might end up with a bit too much hashing power if they decided to go that far. Maybe somebody with actual mining experience could set me straight on that point and tell me if I'm wrong.
They might be having so much huge cash reserves but I don't think they are putting all in this mining business as stakeholders won't let it happen easily.
It’s not as if Exxon shareholders are hard up for cash, either: in the five years after the Paris Agreement was brokered, the company has funneled $103.3 billion into dividends and stock buybacks. Last year, Exxon devoted just 0.16 percent of its capital expenditure toward its low-carbon efforts.
They have distributed quite a lot of dividends and maybe putting good amount of money into this mining process but still won't be able to capture the full control of the market according to me.At this time the mining difficulty is hard and you need very high level of ASIC machines which many mining pools like Antpool have but still we see hashrate distribution.You can't take full control of bitcoin network with huge money inflows also which keeps it safe and this scenario is not possible.Although I am not mining expert but this is my opinion from the knowledge i have.So it's good for them if they jump into this mining business but will see when it actually happens.
As far as their choice of location, they picked a good one. North Dakota has got to be one of the coldest states in the US. They might have done better in Alaska, but maybe there's some tax advantage in ND.
They also have plans for bitcoin projects in Alaska as well as per reports:
Last week, Bloomberg reported that ExxonMobil is planning to expand its bitcoin-mining pilot in the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota, opening up new bitcoin projects in Alaska, Nigeria, Guyana, Argentina, and Germany.
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ExxonMobil btc mining plans