This article is from cointelegraph.com.br and the original article can be read here in Portuguese
Tax exemption, low energy cost and distance from large urban centers. These are some of the advantages that motivated the foreign capital company FMI Minecraft Management to announce a contribution that could reach US$ 45 million in the Zona Franca Zapala, in the ArgentineĀ province of NeuquĆ©n, for Bitcoin mining (BTC). Haading the operations is the CEO and founder of the company, John Blount, who lives in Santa Catarina. The Brazilian family executive said that the low energy cost of the city in the Argentine Patagonia region motivated the investment and revealed that the company will produce its own energy used in mining.
According to John Blount, US$20 million will be invested to set up a mining operation in the first stage, although another US$25 million could be invested in other stages. The forecast for the start of mining is the first quarter of 2023.
The project foresees the renovation of more than 50 kilometers of trunk gas pipelines, which should guarantee the generation of 114 megawatts (MW) of power in the first stage. In the second year, the goal is to reach 250 MW and, in a third stage, 1 gigawatt (GW) through the construction of a gas pipeline from the village of AƱelo to the Free Trade Zone, which will represent four times the energy consumption of the city of NeuquƩn, capital of the province of NeuquƩn. Investment that is justified by the low energy cost of the site, less than half of the world average for mining.
The mining metric is the price per kilowatt hour. In mining, we always talk about the cost of energy, because it is the most expensive asset in the operation. In this project we will have a cost that will be one of the cheapest in the world, below 3 cents on the dollar, said Blount.
The tax exemption of the Free Trade Zone and the strategic location, an attractive geographic point and far from urban centers, are also among the factors that attracted the company.
One of the challenges for the realization of a project of this size was precisely to establish a partnership with the Zapala Free Trade Zone. After all, we will be in a strategically available area, at a viable price, very far from any residence, within a space whose focus is oil and natural gas, oil companies, and we will still be close to the second largest gas reserve in the world – Vaca Muerta – main geological formation of unconventional hydrocarbons in Argentina. Therefore, we will not take gas from anyone; we will consume and produce off-grid energyā, explained the businessman.
The development will occupy an area of āā41 thousand square meters, with the possibility of reaching 80 thousand square meters in other stages of the project, which, according to the CEO of FMI Minecraft Management, will only be possible because of the support of the local government, because, although the construction of the gas pipelines is done by private companies, they need a public concession to carry out the work.
While the Argentine Free Trade Zone opens its doors to mining, in the state of New York, in U.S, the story is different. That’s because the state Assembly voted on April 26 on a two-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations, as reported by the Cointelegraph.