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Aoyon Ashraf
Aoyon Ashraf is crypto mining reporter with more than a decade of experience in covering equity markets
Riot Blockchain (RIOT), one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin (BTC) mining companies, said it has started the development of a large-scale 1 gigawatt (GW) expansion project at Navarro County, Texas.
The expansion, which will be one of the largest among its peers, will take place in phases. An initial 400 megawatt (MW) of capacity will be developed with immersion-cooled computers on 265 acres of land, with mining and hosting operations expected to commence in July 2023, the company said in a statement.
Riot estimates the total cost of the first phase of the expansion will be about $333 million, which is scheduled to be invested over the remainder of 2022, 2023 and the first quarter of 2024.
After completing the first 400MW phase, future capacity at Riot’s site will be expanded by an additional 600MW to 1 GW.
“Upon completion of the expansion, Riot’s developed capacity will total 1.7 GW, establishing the Company among the largest bitcoin mining operations globally,” said Riot CEO Jason Les in the statement.
On April 1, Riot said it filed for the sale of up to $500 million in shares from time to time, otherwise known as an “at-the-market” (ATM) offering, proceeds of which may be used for investments in existing and future projects. It also said in its recent presentation that the company has about $312.3 million in cash.
The expansion site is within the two hours of Riot’s Whinstone facility, which has a total power capacity of 750MW with 400MW currently developed.
Riot will partner with bitcoin mining energy services company, Priority Power, for site development management, utility interconnection, power purchase agreements and power load flexibility.
On April 5, Riot said that by January of next year, the company expects to have a self-mining hashrate capacity of 12.8 EH/s and upon full deployment of all currently contracted mining rigs, its total self-mining fleet will consume about 370MW of energy.
In addition to the company’s self-mining operations, Riot hosts approximately 200MW of institutional bitcoin mining clients at its facilities.
Riot shares were initially up more than 3% on Wednesday, but are now only up slightly to $11.14.
