Oracle has renewed its push for FERC approval to expedite a 17.8-mile natural gas pipeline for its Project Jupiter data center, per Data Center Dynamics.
Oracle has revived its effort to win approval for a natural gas pipeline extension needed to supply its 2.5GW Project Jupiter data center campus in Doña Ana County, New Mexico.
According to Bloomberg, the cloud computing firm has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to expedite approval of the 17.8-mile (28.6 km) Green Chile pipeline. The line would transport about 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to on-site fuel cells that will power the facility. Bloom Energy is supplying the fuel cells and has signed several offtake deals with other data center firms.
In a letter to FERC, Oracle said the project is projected to support nearly 5,800 peak construction jobs and generate up to $1.1 billion in annual economic output for the local county.
In July, Energy Transfer, a midstream gas company, saw its application to build a new natural gas pipeline to serve the site rejected by state regulators. State officials cited large-scale water use, increased CO2 emissions, and a lack of state revenue generation as major factors in their decision.
Despite the rejection, Oracle said the project remains on schedule. In September, however, it was reported that the company had sent a force majeure notice to Blue Owl Capital. The notice would shield Oracle from potential increased costs if the facility fails to come online in 2028 as planned, and would allow the firm to delay the payments it would otherwise have to make, rather than forfeit its tenancy.
The pipeline's operational timeline is now set for February 2027, well past its August target, and there is growing concern that the data center could also face significant delays.
In response to the renewed push for approval, environmental groups and New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez have urged FERC to broaden its environmental review. They are asking the agency to evaluate the combined footprint of the data center and the pipeline before granting approval.
As a workaround for its gas supply issues, recent reports revealed that Oracle has been trucking compressed natural gas to its Salt Lake City and Texas data centers for the past year. According to the reports, the company is now considering the same model for Project Jupiter.