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CoinDesk Podcast Network

THE MINING POD: What Bitcoin Miners Get Wrong About Oil And Gas w/ Sean McDonough

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CoinDesk

Cryptocurrencies, Cryptocurrency, Dlt, Tokenization, Coindesk, Distributed Ledger, Blockchain, Tech News, Business News, Ethereum, Bitcoin, News, Digitalassets, Daily News, Decentralization, Defi, Crypto, Business

4.8689 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sean McDonough of New West joins the pod to discuss how oil and gas bitcoin mining has changed and where the sector is headed. 


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Welcome back to The Mining Pod! Today, Sean McDonough, president and founder of New West Data joins us to talk about the company’s vertically integrated oil and gas bitcoin mining operations in Alberta, Canada. We explore the pros and cons of full O&G ownership versus JV partnerships, barriers for large oil companies entering Bitcoin mining, regulatory considerations in Alberta, and the convergence of oil, gas, and AI data centers.


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**Notes:**

• New West: $1.5M CAD per megawatt CapEx cost

• Alberta flare gas mining still relatively small scale

• Dual revenue streams: oil sales + Bitcoin mining

• Cash flows split evenly between oil and Bitcoin

• Generators are largest CapEx item, more than miners

• Hash rate trading in 800-900 range for months


00:00 Start

02:38 New West

04:26 Ownership instead of service

07:35 Why don't we see more miner vertical integration

10:06 JV's and risk

10:56 Nat Gas economics

12:30 Nat Gas more profitable than mining?

15:48 Regulation in Alberta

17:57 Understanding of BTC mining in Alberta

19:58 Drillers shifting thinking

24:37 Economics of pure play Nat Gas mining?

28:45 Have oil producers soured on BTC miners?

32:55 NYDIG & Caruso buyout

36:09 Ai energy bottleneck

41:00 Hashrate predictions

42:41 Hashrate chart waves


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Published twice weekly, "The Mining Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What's going on, y'all? Welcome back to the mining pod. For today's show, we have Sean McDonough,

0:06.2

the president and founder of New West Data, an oil and gas miner in Alberta, Canada that also

0:12.2

owns the oil and gas wells that they mine on. So they've got a really interesting business model

0:17.2

where they can sell the oil and they do sell the oil to market. They also mine

0:21.3

Bitcoin on top of that to have dual revenue streams. So in this conversation, we talk about

0:26.4

that strategy, what led Sean to adopt it and actually decide to completely vertically integrate

0:31.9

versus just co-host on an oil and gas site or JV with an oil and gas company. We also talk about some of the

0:39.1

barriers for some of these bigger oil and gas companies with regards to getting into Bitcoin mining,

0:44.5

why some of that adoption has been slow and what needs to change for it to pick up. And we close

0:49.7

with talking about the convergence of oil and gas and AI data centers, whether or not this is

0:54.8

something that's really possible or is currently happening. So buckle in y'all, really fun

0:59.2

conversation. Really enjoyed this one with Sean. He brings a lot of great insights. So I hope

1:03.3

you all enjoy it too. Today's show is brought to you by fractal Bitcoin, but we'll learn more

1:07.2

about them later in the show. For now, let's get right into it.

1:14.9

I want to take a second and talk about Colorado Air Filter, a new sponsor for the mining pod and a major supplier of air filtration systems for Bitcoin mining sites.

1:19.0

Colorado Air Filter is currently running a summer sale on their inventory from Mervate

1:22.5

pleats to hepa filters, shipments and installations, containers retrofitted buildings.

1:26.8

Colorado Air Filter has it all.

1:28.4

Here's what one recent major miner had to say about working with Colorado Air Filter.

1:32.4

Working with Keith and Colorado Air Filter has been a seamless experience from day one.

1:36.1

Their filter media consistently meets the demands of our Bitcoin mining facilities,

1:39.6

ensuring reliable airflow and equipment protection.

...

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