Orcadian Energy plc, a North Sea-focused oil and gas exploration and development company listed on London’s junior AIM market, has commenced the assessment phase for an offshore power station and co-located data center that would sit on top of a gas discovery that has sat undeveloped for three decades because its gas is nearly half carbon dioxide.
Orcadian announced on Thursday that it will establish a new company, Earlham Gigagrid Ltd, and intends to assign its 100 percent interest in license P2680 to a Gigagrid subsidiary. The Southern North Sea license contains the Earlham gas discovery, the decommissioned Orwell field, and the undrilled Clover prospect.
The proposed complex is three bridge-linked platforms comprised of a wellhead platform supporting two production wells and one carbon dioxide injection well, a power station, and a data center hall on a dedicated jacket. The first phase would supply approximately 200 MW of electrical power, measured as IT load, with high rack density supported by direct-to-chip liquid cooling. Orcadian believes follow-on halls could deliver over a gigawatt of dispatchable low-carbon power without adding stress to the national grid.
“We believe that this development concept for Earlham, focussed on generating low-carbon power offshore to supply an offshore data centre, can be transformational for the value of our P2680 licence,” Steve Brown, Orcadian Chief Executive Officer, said in the announcement.
Orcadian does not intend to build the facilities itself. Instead, it says it expects the development to come from hyperscalers or neoclouds, naming CoreWeave, Nebius, and Crusoe Cloud among others.
Earlham gas is 49 percent carbon dioxide, which makes pipeline export to the shore unattractive. Talisman discovered the field in 1995, and BP abandoned an appraisal well there the following year because of the carbon dioxide content. In the Directors’ opinion, generating power at the field, capturing the carbon dioxide, and reinjecting it into the reservoir is now the optimal route to monetize the resource.
Because Earlham gas alone is too poor to burn, Orcadian will blend it with Orwell gas to reach an average methane content of 50 percent. It estimates Earlham holds 114 billion cubic feet of methane on a P50 basis and believes an Orwell redevelopment could deliver a further 31 billion cubic feet.
Orcadian has only begun preparing a Concept Select Report, and everything beyond that depends on the North Sea Transition Authority approving the assignment of P2680 and issuing a Letter of No Objection, as well as all other consents including any required carbon storage license. The company has also not determined which turbine can burn the low-calorie gas, calling that an important product of the concept select process. Furthermore the announcement discloses no plateau rate or field life for the combined 145 billion cubic feet resource.