In Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta region, a new startup is turning a decades-old environmental problem into a digital opportunity. Green Flare Holdings, a climate-tech infrastructure company, will convert flares—gas emissions from oil fields usually burned into the atmosphere—into electricity for data centers. The plan? Start with Bitcoin mining, and scale to powering artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance compute.
“What we’ve come up with is a really first-of-its-kind approach,” said Charles Majomi, co-founder of Green Flare. “We’re taking gas that is normally flared—associated gas—and turning it into power to drive data centers that mine Bitcoin at scale in the heart of the Niger Delta.”
Bitcoin mining is the process of verifying and recording transactions on the Bitcoin network by solving complex cryptographic puzzles, which secures the blockchain and releases new bitcoins as a reward for miners. This process requires vast computational power and, as a result, consumes significant amounts of energy. Traditionally, mining operations rely on electricity from the grid, but flare gas—a byproduct of oil extraction that is often burned off as waste due to a lack of pipelines or commercial uses—offers a novel alternative. Instead of allowing this gas to go to waste or pollute the atmosphere, Green Flare partners with upstream oil and gas producers to capture it, converts it into electricity using mobile gas generators, and uses that energy to power Bitcoin mining servers directly on-site.
A $1 billion opportunity buried in Nigeria’s waste gas
Flare gas has long symbolised Nigeria’s environmental challenges and energy paradox. The country flares up to 1 billion standard cubic feet of gas daily, enough to generate between 5 and 9 gigawatts of power, dwarfing the country’s actual on-grid output. Oil and gas companies in Nigeria flared gas worth $485.3 million in the first half of 2023.
“The waste is astronomical,” said Green Flare’s co-founder and CFO, Joseph Lassen. “If we commercialise even 5% of Nigeria’s flares, we’re looking at a billion-dollar opportunity. Scale that, and it’s tens of billions.”
The company is building three sites in Delta State with a combined potential capacity of 53 megawatts. It’ll start with Bitcoin mining, which is easier to deploy and monetise, then scale to more intensive compute workloads like AI and cloud services. It’s a model pioneered in the US by companies like Crusoe Energy, Marathon Digital, and Giga Energy, but Green Flare says Nigeria has even more to gain.
“We are transforming wasted energy into productive assets, reducing emissions, and proving that Nigeria can lead Africa in clean, distributed computing,” said Adeoye Fadeyibi, CEO of Green Flare Holdings.
Bitcoin mining is just the first step. With cheap, off-grid power secured, the company wants to expand into AI and machine learning infrastructure. “This is Nigeria’s chance to become a solution to the global computing resource shortage,” said Barbara Ijayi, Founding Partner at Unicorn Growth Capital and one of Green Flare’s investors. “Whether it’s Bitcoin, AI, or cloud, the world doesn’t have enough compute. This puts Nigeria on the map.”
It’s not just a crypto play; it’s a climate one too. According to Lassen, capturing and combusting flare gas reduces carbon emissions by up to 45% and slashes methane leaks, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.
Bitcoin mining is lightly regulated in Nigeria, compared to traditional crypto exchanges. “It’s an offshore opportunity,” said Ijayi. “It’s like selling oil and getting dollars. It’s not a central bank issue.” Still, the business model hinges on continued access to cheap gas and stable macroeconomic conditions. Any change in flare gas rights or new taxes could tilt the economics.
But for now, Green Flare is betting that stranded energy and high computing demand—especially for Bitcoin, which recently crossed $100,000—will sustain its margins.
“Our cost per Bitcoin will be about 25% of the competition—somewhere between $5,000 to $12,000 depending on energy prices,” said Lassen. “Even if Bitcoin prices drop by 50%, which we don’t see more than maybe once every five years, we would still be highly profitable.”
Green Flare says its dual-revenue approach—Bitcoin mining and future AI compute contracts with hyperscalers like Amazon or Google—offers a hedge against crypto volatility. And with 90% of the world’s computing needs forecast to come from AI and edge computing by 2030, the startup believes it’s well-positioned for the next wave of digital demand. Africa contributes only 3% to the global Bitcoin mining hash rate.
Crypto, compute, and community
While the pitch to investors is about climate, compute, and crypto economics, Green Flare says it is focused on community impact. According to Majomi, the company has already signed memoranda of understanding with its host communities in line with the requirements of Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the Host Community Development Trust provisions. These agreements ensure that local residents are meaningfully included in the flare-gas-to-Bitcoin mining operation from the ground up.
“We will give special consideration to community members, [in the] unskilled category,” he said, noting that much of the early-stage work—such as land clearing and site preparation—will be done by locals. “And then secondly, there’s the skilled labour requirement. Obviously, as skilled labour becomes more available, we would prioritize bringing and training members from the community.”
The company also plans to power a distance learning program using electricity from its mining operations to train local talent in technology, math, and science. “One of the functions of our electrification agenda with the local community is to provide distance learning facilities that will be powered up from our site, and through this kind of distance learning program, incorporate them into the business itself. So that the technology transfer aspect fully, fully impacts the community.”
Beyond education and jobs, Majomi says Bitcoin mining infrastructure can catalyse rural electrification in ways traditional grid expansion has failed to achieve. “Bitcoin mining actually, because it’s only dependent on cheap energy, means that you can bring power infrastructure to areas of the interior and then the hinterland that would never have seen power for decades, or even never,” he explained. “We’re seeing how Bitcoin and rural electrification have this very, very interesting interplay that’s developing,” Charles added. “And we, being at the front of that, will explore that fully.”
As global giants like OpenAI, Amazon, and Meta scramble to secure computing power, Green Flare believes Nigeria can become the next low-cost frontier for compute, not just for crypto, but for cloud, AI, and beyond.
“We’re already walking,” said Majomi. “I can’t imagine what’s going to happen as we get momentum and as consciousness grows.”
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