BREAKING: Parsing the reasons behind today's move in HNRG shares
Hallador is showing solid signs that it's getting closer to a deal with a data center developer
This morning, a SeekingAlpha analysis of recent news regarding Hallador Energy’s data center deal sent HNRG shares soaring. Shares were up over 10% on the day by around 11 am, before falling back in the afternoon and closing about 2% higher on the day at $10.04.
I wrote about the data center deal in my last piece about HNRG here on TCT. And Matt signaled in one of his recent Substack Chats that HNRG shares looked awfully cheap below the $9/share mark, which they reached last week.
A data center deal would be a game-changer for Hallador, but we haven’t been given any information on who’s the builder behind the data center (DC). So, when I read this morning’s SeekingAlpha analysis, I had to check everything out myself.
This morning’s market-moving analysis on HNRG essentially said that a data center deal is imminent because a filing has been made for a transmission connection study to hook up the DC to Hallador’s Merom coal plant. The thesis is that the transmission study filing means that the DC builder is serious, and the analyst presented some time lapse satellite images showing land being cleared near the data center location. The analysis looked good, but there are a number of moving pieces here, so I had to vet everything myself.
The site of the data center that the analyst points out is absolutely legit, as is the “expedited” filing with the grid operator from 4 February. You can see from the screenshot below, which is from the MISO website, that the new load addition (meaning the DC) is just south of the Merom plant’s rail loop (the rail loop is faintly shown on the image, you may need to zoom in).
Source: MISO Transmission Expansion Planning portal
[I’d provide the link to the above MISO content as for full transparency, but you need to go through a bit of a painful login process to get access to MISO’s Transmission Expansion Planning portal. And because Hallador has to partner with the local electric coop on the DC deal, the filing is under Hoosier Energy. I’ll post how to do it in the comments if readers are interested.]
Based on the satellite images of the area just south of Merom, (shown below) I think that there is definitely some site clearing work that has begun for the data center (circled in red).
Source: EOS LandViewer as of 12 March 2025.