The hurricane that struck Montana on June 11 damaged the Hardin power plant that powers 30,000 Marathon Digital Holdings miners.
$MARA Update on mining ops in Montana 👇
— Severe storm passed through Hardin on 6/11
— Power plant cooling towers need repairs
— Majority of miners not damaged
— Miners outside Hardin (0.6 EH/s) remain hashing via 3rd party pool https://t.co/ZcaD30S1bh— Marathon Digital Holdings (@MarathonDH) June 28, 2022
According to the statement, this equipment accounts for more than 75% of the company’s active mining capacity.
Operations are expected to resume at reduced capacity in the first week of July. According to the company, most miners were not affected by the incident.
Cooling towers at the power plant were damaged by the hurricane; the damage assessment is ongoing, Marathon said.
The remaining active Bitcoin mining capacity at 0.6 EH/s was switched from the MaraPool to a third-party pool to increase the likelihood of earning rewards.
“The severe storm in Montana unexpectedly reduced our hashrate in June and posed a new challenge that we are actively working to overcome. A full return of miners online will take time, and we are committed to doing everything we can to restore and improve Bitcoin production,” said Marathon CEO Fred Thiel.
In April, the company announced its intent to transition miners from the Hardin facility to more sustainable energy sources to achieve carbon neutrality. It was expected to occur in the third quarter. Marathon is now evaluating the possibility of accelerating the move out of Montana.
The company said that, in light of the Hardin issues, deployment of equipment in Texas is proceeding on schedule.
Marathon posted a loss of $13 million in the first quarter of 2022.
In April, Arcane Research analysts identified the firm’s shares as the most overvalued among publicly traded mining companies, based on their metric.
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