Helium and AI Firms Joining Up to Work on Dream of Net-Zero Data Center in the Permian Basin Oil and Gas Field
The oil-rich Permian Basin of west Texas and eastern New Mexico is certainly ranked among the nation’s top fossil fuel production areas and well-known for its high carbon footprint.
Two companies are partnering to try and make a decarbonization shift in that reputation with a new project focused on plans for a net-zero energy data center in the Permian.
New Era Helium, an exploration and production (E&P) company sourcing helium produced in association with natural gas reserves within the Permian Basin, has finalized a 50/50 joint venture with Sharon AI, a High-Performance Computing business specializing in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud GPU Compute Infrastructure, and Cloud Storage.
The joint venture, called Texas Critical Data Centers (TCDC), will fund, develop, and construct a 250-MW net-zero energy data center within the Permian Basin. The agreement will help utilize clean energy for AI/high performance computing (HPC)-driven industries.
Currently, New Era Helium is negotiating a long term offtake gas supply agreement, which is expected to be finalized within the next 30 days, with TCDC. The details of the agreement will provide New Era Helium a fixed price for its natural gas over a five-year period and three options of an additional five years each, for a total of 20 years.
This could guarantee that the large-scale data center project will benefit from low-cost, net-zero energy as well as long-term energy price stability, which makes the project strategically well positioned to address the increasing energy demands of AI/HPC workloads.
TCDC has multiple sites identified within the Permian Basin to allow it to access New Era Helium’s natural gas through various existing gas transmission lines while siting the data center nearby the existing fiber optic cable and associated infrastructure.
It is also working to identify the most efficient manner to access certain tax credits associated with carbon capture utilization and storage. According to the plan, the data center could have the ability to capture the CO2 and dispose of it.
Both New Era Helium and Sharon AI expect to announce the final site selection of the 250 MW net-zero energy data center in the first quarter. The next announcements will include certain entitlements for the site, selection of power generation and CO2 capture technology, as well as ongoing conversations with offtake partners, which may include hyperscalers and other large energy users.
