Oracle has a low-tech fix for a high-tech problem. Bloomberg reported on October 8 that Oracle is considering trucking compressed natural gas (CNG) into Project Jupiter, its data center campus in New Mexico, after a pipeline delay threatened the construction timeline.
Project Jupiter sits on about 1,400 acres at Santa Teresa, near the Mexican border, with total investment reportedly reaching $165 billion. Rather than wait for the grid, the plan is to generate power on site: up to 2.45 gigawatts of Bloom Energy fuel cells running on natural gas. But the pipeline meant to deliver that gas is stuck.
The holdup is a 17-mile pipeline being built by Energy Transfer. New Mexico's State Land Office refused permission for the pipeline to cross state land in March and again in July, forcing a reroute that pushed the targeted service date from this summer to next year (February 1, 2027).
On the record, Oracle sent the project's developer a force majeure notice in September — a contract clause that can pause or dispute certain obligations when events beyond a party's control disrupt delivery, potentially shielding Oracle from some payments if delays worsen. Oracle says the project remains on schedule.
Trucking gas sounds improvised, but Oracle has done it before. Superior Plus' Certarus kept a data center near Salt Lake City running for more than a year on delivered gas while a pipeline was built and integrated. VoltaGrid, a mobile power company, is supplying an Oracle campus being built for OpenAI in Shackelford County, Texas — and Oracle publicly praised the firm on social media for "cost-effective power solutions" that keep OCI capacity on schedule.
The workaround works, but it swaps a predictable pipeline feed for delivered fuel that is harder to plan around — power costs get more variable, swinging with transport, availability, and reliability. What investors really care about is when Project Jupiter can add dependable computing capacity and what it will cost to run; that timing and margin uncertainty can weigh on sentiment even if the site stays operational day to day.
It also reflects a wider AI-infrastructure strain. BloombergNEF data shows nearly 100 data centers have, or are building, on-site natural gas power, because grid interconnection queues stretch for years. Oracle itself is burning cash to build: $28.5 billion on buildings and equipment in the quarter ended August 31 (versus $8.5 billion a year earlier), with $5.4 billion in cash burn after that spending. Free cash flow is expected to stay negative until more AI data centers are completed.
In the near term, trucked gas could bring Jupiter's early halls online before the pipeline. Longer term, the 2028 opening target hinges on whether the rerouted pipeline starts service in February 2027 as planned. Another slip would leave little time to fill 2.45 GW of fuel cells.