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By Julian Hast
A key New Mexico natural gas pipeline project that would supply fuel to power a planned Oracle Corp. artificial intelligence data center has been delayed by nearly six months.
The Green Chile Project pipeline now has an estimated in-service date of Feb. 1, 2027, pushing past its earlier targeted date of Aug. 15, pipeline operator Energy Transfer LP’s subsidiary Transwestern Pipeline said Friday in a regulatory filing.
The revised timeline adds a wrinkle in Oracle’s proposed data center plan known as Project Jupiter, one of the most crucial in the company’s massive Stargate contract with OpenAI. The facility is expected to be driven by as much as 2.5 gigawatts of gas-powered fuel cells from Bloom Energy Corp., making it among the largest AI data centers under development.
Oracle shares were down 3.6% as of 3:43 p.m. in New York, while Energy Transfer shares rose 1.5%.
“Project Jupiter remains on schedule, and we continue to work closely with our partners to move the project forward,” an Oracle spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The delay comes after repeated denials from the New Mexico State Land Office to approve Energy Transfer’s proposed route for the pipeline, which includes a small portion of public state land. The conduit would be capable of delivering as much as 400 million cubic feet per day of gas to the facility, equal to about 0.4% of total lower-48 US gas production.
Just a few miles north of the international border with Mexico, the site prompted local protests largely focused on potential environmental impact. The project received a package of tax incentives and support from government-backed bonds.
Given the obstacles Energy Transfer faces to certification of its project on both the state and federal level, its new Feb. 1 estimated in-service date “is probably not realistic,” said Josh Garcia, senior North American gas analyst at Energy Aspects. “We expect that Green Chile will not enter service until the second half of 2027 at the earliest, but faces risk of cancellation if progress is not made in the coming months.”
Oracle in May told federal energy regulators that “time is of the essence” in approving Green Chile, and any delays in its approval jeopardizes “the broader objectives of Project Jupiter.” It also said Project Jupiter represents an investment of up to $165 billion in Doña Ana County in New Mexico, near the US-Mexico border.
Energy Transfer couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Bloom didn’t immediately provide comment.
— With assistance from Emma Sanchez, Brody Ford, and Will Wade
(Updates shares and adds analyst commentary from fourth paragraph.)
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