MARA: FERC approves gas plant buy; Texas site rights secured; two leases targeted

MARA Holdings says the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved its purchase of the Long Ridge natural gas plant, in its shareholder letter for Q3 2026, released on 9 November 2026. MARA expects to complete the purchase within weeks, once customary conditions are met; another section of the letter gives year-end as the expected close.

MARA says the plant is authorised to sell 485 MW today and is expected to rise to 505 MW, its nameplate rating, in the first six months of 2027. It says the plant comes with more than 1,600 adjoining acres that have power, water, fibre and rail access, and that together with its existing bitcoin mining there this would give it more than 1 GW of potential capacity at the site.

MARA also says it has secured development rights to a site in Matagorda County, Texas, that could take as much as 2 GW of power. According to the letter, ERCOT recently classed the site as a studied load in its Batch Zero process, MARA is cooperating with the utility on energising it, and after the quarter MARA obtained a $100 million letter of credit covering the interconnection study deposit. MARA says payments to the sellers depend on approval of power and that it has made none so far.

MARA says it has hosted prospective tenants at nearly all of its sites and that pre-development at its Kearney site is well advanced. It aims to sign two leases by the end of the year, but says the market keeps shifting and the signings could move into 2027.

MARA says Exaion, a subsidiary it owns a majority of, has signed a four-year, $79 million contract to provide GPU capacity as a service to its first US customer, fully on take-or-pay terms. MARA says customer demand has given Exaion a pipeline whose total contract value exceeds $3 billion, with roughly $1 billion of it aimed at delivery before the close of 2027, and calls these signs of demand that are neither contracted nor committed.