Houston-based Riverway Group, LLC and Offshore Data Center, LLC announced a collaboration to design and build offshore platforms that turn stranded and undervalued natural gas into power for data centers sited at the gas source. The companies say the approach gives oil and gas producers a way to monetize gas that is uneconomic to develop under conventional models.
How the partnership splits the work
Offshore Data Center brings partner relationships, notably Horton do Brasil Tecnologia Offshore Ltda and its patented semi-submersible hull designs. Riverway adds automated welding and advanced fabrication methods. Together, the companies say, the result is a hull up to 50% lighter than traditional designs, with better stability. They say that makes construction on the U.S. Gulf Coast cost-competitive with shipyards in South Korea, China and Singapore.
The hulls are built to carry heavy topside loads. Those include data centers, ammonia or methanol production units and conventional production facilities. The platforms also use patented closed-loop cooling that draws on deep-ocean water.
Cooling and the gas-to-data chain
Cooling can account for as much as 40% of a data center's energy use, according to the announcement. Drawing on cold deep-ocean water cuts that load and improves power-generation efficiency, the companies say.
Offshore Data Center targets gas that is stranded, uneconomic under conventional development, or undervalued, including gas reinjected beyond what reservoir pressure maintenance requires. Its concepts range from facilities of up to 1 gigawatt for large-scale AI training to smaller configurations for edge and inference computing. The usual chain pipes gas to shore, converts it to electricity and sends it to a land-based data center. Offshore Data Center shortens that chain by placing power generation and modular, liquid-cooled GPUs and CPUs next to the gas supply. Its platforms can also support gas-to-ammonia or gas-to-methanol conversion where project economics and customer requirements favor it.
Art J. Schroeder, Jr., CEO of Offshore Data Center, said a significant amount of offshore gas is never developed or is simply reinjected because getting it to market "doesn't pencil out." Putting the data center next to the gas, he said, removes the pipeline to shore and the transmission line and cuts the cooling bill. In his words, Riverway gives the company a way to build the platforms in the United States.
The companies expect the collaboration to strengthen U.S. maritime manufacturing and domestic energy development. Offshore Data Center says it is working with service and equipment providers to offer an end-to-end solution.
