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By Chris Wack
The9 Ltd. shares were up 35% to $14.70 Friday after the company said it is buying Montcrypto Ltd., a Canadian company, to build a 20 megawatt supply of electricity in Calgary.
Volume for the stock was 18 million shares at 1:05 p.m. ET, compared with a 65-day average of 2 million shares. The stock hit a 52-week high of $89.20 on Feb.22.
The Internet company said the carbon-neutral infrastructure of Montcrypto provides a greener and more environmentally friendly power supply to the cryptocurrency mining business of The9.
Montcrypto had signed natural gas procurement contracts with local oil extraction companies and plans to build carbon-neutral cryptocurrency mining facilities by using natural gas as the source of electricity power generation.
The9 said it plans to invest a total of 7.6 million Canadian dollars ($6.3 million) in Montcrypto in two phases to obtain the controlling stake in Montcrypto. Upon the completion of the two phases, the power capacity of the mining facilities will be 20 MW, which can supply electricity to operate more than 6,000 S19j Antminers.
Montcrypto will cooperate with oil companies in the Calgary area to deploy mobile and modular cryptocurrency mining facilities at the oil well sites, and convert natural gas through a series of processing procedures such as recovery, pretreatment, and energy conversion of the natural gas. This provides a stable supply of electricity for mass cryptocurrency mining machines.
When all the 20 MW carbon-neutral mining facilities are put into use, the byproduct natural gas in the area will be reduced by 53 million cubic meters every year, and the greenhouse gas emissions of 128,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent will be reduced, the company said.
The9 also announced the closing of an investment in Skychain Technologies Inc., a cryptocurrency mining facilities company. The9’s investment in Skychain is for its expansion in the capacity from 20 MW to 32 MW. The expansion of the mining site is located in Birtle, Manitoba. Upon the completion of the expansion, The9 said it will deploy its cryptocurrency mining machines there.
Write to Chris Wack at chris.wack@wsj.com
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