Orcadian Energy has agreed a 90-day, non-exclusive joint development agreement with an American offshore data center developer, opening a window to negotiate a deal that would power the developer's compute hardware with gas from Orcadian's Earlham and Orwell licenses in UK waters. The clock started on the date of the announcement, and neither company is bound to sign, finance or complete anything unless separate definitive agreements follow.
The American company describes itself as an integrated infrastructure owner and compute operator. It plans to build the offshore compute platform and own or finance the hardware that runs on it. It would then sell contracted compute capacity to customers.
What the 90 days cover
During the window, the two companies will run due diligence and commercial validation on the concept. They will also try to negotiate what Orcadian calls a definitive Earlham and Orwell energy-to-compute transaction. The agreement gives the American developer an option to lock in exclusivity by paying a fee still to be agreed. No money changed hands when the agreement was signed.
Exclusivity would run to March 2027
If the developer pays for exclusivity and exercises it, that exclusivity would hold until 1 March 2027. During that stretch, Orcadian could not offer competing rights over Earlham, Orwell or the P2680 license to anyone else, and it would have to shut down any parallel talks it is having with other parties about a competing transaction. Either side can still walk away from the underlying agreement on 10 business days' notice.
The Earlham Gigagrid concept
Orcadian's plan, called the Earlham Gigagrid, would supply power and infrastructure to the American developer's compute platform without drawing on the UK grid, a design meant to hold down Scope 3 emissions. Orcadian's directors believe the setup could deliver competitive power costs, a view still subject to the validation work due inside the 90-day window.
Gas behind the plan
Earlham and Orwell carry estimated 2C contingent resources of 145 Bcf combined, as of 1 January 2026. Contingent resources are gas volumes a company believes are in place but has not yet confirmed are commercially recoverable.
| License | 2C contingent resources |
|---|---|
| Earlham | 114 Bcf |
| Orwell | 31 Bcf |
| Combined | 145 Bcf |
These are Orcadian's own estimates, built on SPE-PRMS categorization and not yet checked by an outside reviewer. The company plans to commission a competent person's report on the two licenses during the 90-day period, and to evaluate development scenarios needed to build out the offshore compute capacity.
CEO comment
Orcadian CEO Steve Brown said the company is working with its new partner "to design a scheme to utilise the gas resources" in its license area toward an offshore data center "of real scale in UK waters." He said the American developer has built "a new approach to the deployment of compute" offshore and would be a natural buyer of the power the Earlham Gigagrid could produce.
