Update: Beetaloo Energy Australia Secures Northern Territory Land for Data Center Development; Shares Jump 13%
(Updates with the stock movement in the headline and last paragraph.)Beetaloo Energy Australia (ASX:BTL) said the Northern Territory government granted the company exclusivity over 185 hectares of contiguous land in the Weddell locality for the proposed Beetaloo Digital integrated power and data center development, according to a Wednesday filing with the Australian bourse.The exclusivity provides Beetaloo Energy certainty to seek consortium partners and advance preliminary front-end engineering design studies, per the filing.The company said it is in commercial discussions for a strongly aligned joint venture.The development is located near the state government's proposed Darwin Energy Hub and aims to accelerate the development of the Beetaloo Basin gas resource, with the energy demand of data center operations underpinning remaining capacity."We intend to overbuild generation capacity, providing the Northern Territory the potential to gain a reliable, large-scale baseload electricity source as a direct outcome of this development," said Beetaloo Energy Managing Director Alex Underwood.The company's shares jumped 13% in recent Wednesday trade.