Oracle asks FERC to fast-track gas pipeline for New Mexico AI data center

Oracle wants federal regulators to move faster on a natural gas pipeline. The company says its New Mexico AI data center depends on it.

The request lands at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). It concerns the proposed Green Chile pipeline, which would carry fuel to the power source of Project Jupiter, Oracle’s data center campus in Doña Ana County near Santa Teresa.

What Oracle is asking for

The appeal came from Josh Pitcock, Oracle’s senior vice president of government affairs. He made it in a letter dated October 13, 2026.

Pitcock’s argument centers on time. Oracle says continued delays threaten the project’s schedule, its potential job creation and the wider economic benefits it expects to bring to the region.

The pipeline itself is not enormous by industry standards. It is approximately 17.8 miles long and designed to move up to 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

That gas would not feed a traditional power plant. It would instead run Bloom Energy fuel cells, devices that convert fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction rather than combustion.

Project Jupiter aims to draw between 2.45 and 2.5 GW of power from those fuel cells.

How the pipeline got stuck

The original schedule called for the pipeline to enter service on August 15, 2026. The new projected date is February 1, 2027.

The slip traces back to the route. The first proposed path crossed state trust lands, and the New Mexico State Land Office rejected it twice.

Those rejections carried a price tag. The state lost approximately $249,000 in fees as a result.

Planners responded by moving the route largely onto federal land. That shift resolved one problem and created another: a longer road through federal review.

Opposition has not faded with the reroute. Environmental advocates and state officials are pushing for a more comprehensive review of the pipeline’s ecological effects.

The trucking workaround

Oracle is not betting everything on FERC’s calendar. The company is weighing an interim plan to truck in compressed natural gas so operations can begin before the pipeline is ready.

The approach has precedent inside Oracle. It has already been used at smaller facilities in Utah and Texas.

The catch is cost. Trucking compressed gas could run four times more than delivering it by pipeline, according to estimates in the research findings.

The economic pitch

Oracle estimates the project will generate nearly 5,800 peak construction jobs.

Projections put annual output for Doña Ana County at up to $1.1 billion during the buildout phase. Oracle has also pointed to a potential economic impact exceeding $13 billion over the life of Project Jupiter.

The company is putting money behind local economic initiatives too.

What this means

The project illustrates a shift in how tech companies source power. Rather than waiting on the regional grid, Oracle plans to generate electricity on site with fuel cells. That sidesteps grid bottlenecks but swaps them for fuel supply bottlenecks, and this pipeline is the proof.

For New Mexico, the state has already turned down the trust land route twice and lost fees in the process, yet it also stands to gain thousands of construction jobs and substantial county output if the project proceeds.

Watch whether FERC responds to Oracle’s request for speed, whether the February 1, 2027 date holds, and whether Oracle commits to the trucking plan despite its higher cost.