Despite what was literally a worldwide flurry of reports last week that Bitmain’s Rockdale project was somewhere between “on hold” and “dead in the water,” the project’s local facility manager says that’s definitely not the case and Bitmain is getting ready to begin preliminary tech work in about a month, followed by mining.
“We’re not backing out, we’re moving forward,” Kelly Ballew told The Reporter.
Ballew, a Rockdale native and 1982 RHS graduate, said Monday there’s great news for the “Rock-dale Mining Farm Site.”
He said Bitmain will begin “populating” its mining boxes—moving in what are called antminer computers—in mid February and actual cryptocurrency mining should be underway two months after that.
FIRST 50 JOBS—While more recent engineering reassessments of the facilities at the former Alcoa Rockdale Operations smelter almost certainly won’t result in employment of the 400-plus originally estimated, Ballew said the project should still be a significant contributor to the area economy.
“We’re not backing out, we’re moving forward.”
—Kelly Ballew, local Bitmain facility manager
The “population” of installing the mining supercomputers, will result in jobs at the site.
“The first 50 people hired will be electrical contractors, primarily working on the high voltage,” Ballew said. “Then there will be other workers placing the antboxes (computers) in place and the population of the (Bitcoin) miners. I don’t know at this time how many workers that will take.”
He added that the limited startup will involve beginning using 50 megawatts of power, not the 30 originally anticipated.
IMPRESSIONS—The situation is a long way from the gloom and doom felt last Wednesday when “the buzz” was that Bitmain was abandoning its Rockdale plans.
Ballew said the impression that Bitmain was walking away from Rock-dale was always inaccurate and, while there have been large company-wide layoffs, work on the Rockdale site had proceeded, even through the much-publicized “45-day work stoppage” announced last fall.
“That simply did not happen here,” Ballew said. “We don’t even know where that 45-day work day stoppage statement came from.”
Last Wednesday, Milam County Judge Steve Young said he had talked to a Bit-main executive and received the impression “Bitmain had suspended operations at the Rockdale site.”
Ballew said that source turned out to be a former Bitmain employee commenting on the company’s layoffs that week, layoffs that did include some Bit-main employees at Rock-dale.
“These were not just layoffs here, but all over the company,” Ballew said. “Nine of the 14 persons here were laid off.”
RE-HIRES—Ballew said after Monday’s good news that mining would begin, he hoped to hire back some of the employees who were terminated last week.
And Ballew said there was a productive meeting with Alcoa executives on Friday as the companies continue to fine-tune their lease agreement on the smelter.
He said some of the issues to be resolved involve connecting many decades-old power substations to the “mining farm” site.
300 MEGAWATTS—
There are some scaling back issues to be resolved, according to Ballew. He said subsequent engineering surveys of the smelter complex indicated Bitmain won’t be able to receive the 500 megawatts of power it had anticipated and that goal is being revised to 300.
Those issues are being worked on, he said.
Ballew said millions of dollars of work has already been completed, including arrival of the complex cryptocurrency mining computers, pouring concrete floors and raising ceilings at the former smelter.
“Bitmain simply is not going to walk away from that kind of an investment,” he said.
TEST SUCCESS—
In fact, the company has even tested its “teleminers” (cryptomining computers) with a large degree of success.
“We had a lower failure rate than predicted and the power factor was within successful levels,” he said.
As for the eventual number of jobs available, Ballew said he couldn’t yet make a guess.
“But this is still going to be very beneficial to Rock-dale and Milam County,” he said.
PRICES—Last week’s initial gloomy reports listed declining Bitcoin prices as a factor in what was interpreted as Bitmain’s plans to walk away from the Rock-dale project.
“But we can make money even at the current level,” Ballew said. “And I believe the price is going to go up.”
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, hailed as the forerunner of a totally new system to impact commerce. It is one of many such cryptocurrencies which are targeted for “mining” at the former smelter.
It has also been forecast the company’s technology at the Rockdale Mining Farm Site would have uses in areas such as artificial intelligence.
BOTTOM LINE—Ballew said the bottom line of the past week’s events is, that while Bitmain’s local project will be scaled back, the impression that the Rock-dale project is being abandoned, or that it was ever put on hold, is incorrect.
“We continue to move forward,” he said. “We’ve never been idle. We’ve been, and continue to be, busy every day.”
See editorial, page 5A
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