UK oil and gas firm Orcadian Energy has canceled plans to use gas from its Earlham and Orwell fields to power an offshore data center.

According to reports from Energy Voice, the company and an undisclosed US digital infrastructure operator mutually agreed to terminate a non-exclusive agreement signed in July.

The deal would have used North Sea gas to power a data center hall of up to 200MW, with the option to expand. At the time, Orcadian said it estimated the Earlham site holds 114 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas, with redevelopment of the depleted Orwell field adding another 31 bcf.

According to reports, the contract was terminated due to concerns that the development scope and timeline for Earlham did not align with the potential partner’s near-term deployment priorities.

Commenting on the termination, Orcadian CEO Steve Brown said: “This particular agreement has not progressed, but the work we did together has materially advanced our understanding of what an offshore compute development at Earlham would require.

“Our view of the opportunity is undiminished, and we continue to engage with a number of other potential partners.”

Despite the contract’s cancellation, the firm will continue to seek partners for the project. In July, the company said that it expects hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, or neoclouds including CoreWeave, Nebius, Lambda Labs, Crusoe Cloud, and Vultr, to eventually build out the power station and data center. The company said the Gigagrid proposal is structured so that outside investors can invest in the project without diluting current Orcadian shareholders’ stakes.

Orcadian Energy plc is a UK-based oil and gas exploration and development company. If realized, the data center development would be its first digital infrastructure investment.