Oracle issued a force majeure notice on Sept. 24 related to Project Jupiter, a multibillion-dollar AI data center campus under construction in southern New Mexico, as key pieces of the energy infrastructure slated for development remain in separate regulatory processes.
STACK Infrastructure and BorderPlex Digital Assets are developing the campus near Santa Teresa. The energy plan includes a 2,462 MW Bloom Energy fuel cell microgrid pending a state construction permit and a proposed pipeline to supply it.
Oracle sent the notice to Blue Owl Capital, owner of STACK Infrastructure. The notice preserves Oracle’s contractual protections if the campus is not connected by 2028 as planned, Bloomberg reported.
“The Jupiter project remains on schedule,” Oracle Vice President Michael Egbert told ENR in a written statement. He says force majeure notices are common in developments of this scale and are often used to preserve contractual rights between project partners.
“They do not, by themselves, establish a project delay or change delivery expectations,” Egbert added.
Bloom Energy also says Oracle remains committed to its contract for 2.4 GW of fuel cell capacity and that Bloom expects to execute the project on Oracle’s expected schedule. Bloom declined to answer ENR’s questions about the microgrid’s current construction status, permits, the commissioning schedule or when gas from the pipeline should be available, instead referring to a statement on social media.
NMED modeling documents locate the proposed 2,462 MW YGI fuel cell microgrid 3.6 miles south of Santa Teresa, NM. The facility boundary is marked in purple; the area shaded in red marks the Sunland Park Ozone Nonattainment Area.
Map courtesy of the New Mexico Department of the Environment
Oracle’s latest headcount figures show data center campus construction continues. More than 3,600 construction workers are helping build the campus, including more than 1,000 New Mexico residents. More than 900 workers joined the project in August, bringing the total workforce to about 2.8 million hours worked, Egbert says.
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Yucca Growth Infrastructure LLC applied in April for New Mexico approval to build the separate microgrid, which would use Bloom Energy’s solid oxide fuel cells to provide 2,462 MW for the nearby data center. Bloom would operate the facility, with the draft permit allowing for up to 2,275 fuel cell groups.
Under the proposed permit, these fuel cells will provide all baseload and backup power. No other equipment in the permitted microgrid would be authorized to supply electricity.
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The microgrid is pending a construction permit
Yucca’s April application identifies the microgrid as yet unbuilt and says the facility did not have a building permit at the time.
Bloom energy servers are shown in an existing fuel cell installation. The New Mexico microgrid proposed by Project Jupiter would use Bloom solid oxide fuel cells to provide 2,462 MW of power.
Image courtesy of Bloom Energy
The same filing says construction is expected to begin “upon permit issuance,” with completion expected in November 2029. However, it separately lists the projected start as approximately October 2026. The filing does not explain the conflicting dates.
The permit proceedings resumed on September 17 after the New Mexico Supreme Court denied a petition seeking a writ of mandamus and lifted the stay it had imposed on August 23.
New Mexico Department of Environment staff have already overcome a major technical hurdle. An air dispersion model review in June found that the proposed microgrid operation would not cause or contribute to exceeding applicable air quality standards and concluded that the permit could be issued based on that analysis.
The department has until Nov. 23 to decide whether to issue the permit, department spokesman Drew Goretzka told Source New Mexico.
Permit timing was a project concern prior to Oracle’s force majeure notice. At a July scheduling hearing, Yucca’s attorney, Jennifer Bradfute, said her client could lose $325 million a month starting in November and urged the state to expedite the proceedings.
The microgrid application calls for peak natural gas consumption of about 375 million standard cubic feet per day and annual usage of about 136.8 billion standard cubic feet.
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Date logs in pipeline service
Transwestern Pipeline Co.’s Green Chile project is proposed. to supply the microgrid with natural gas. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says the project would deliver up to 400,000 dekaterms per day from the existing El Paso natural gas system to Green Chile Ventures LLC to meet natural gas demand for power generation at a new AI data center campus.
FERC’s September environmental assessment maps the proposed 17.77-mile Green Chile Natural Gas Pipeline in Doña Ana County, NM. The line would supply gas used to generate power for the Jupiter project.
Map courtesy of FERC/Transwestern Pipeline Co.
Transwestern originally tried to have the pipeline in service in August. In an August FERC filing, the company moved its planned in-service date to February 2027, according to Source New Mexico.
FERC has not yet authorized construction. His staff completed an environmental assessment in September of Transwestern’s current proposal for 17.77 miles of 24-inch-diameter natural gas transmission pipeline, metering facilities and related infrastructure in Doña Ana County. The assessment concluded that approval of the project would not constitute a major federal action that would significantly affect the quality of the human environment.
A separate federal land review has been completed. The Bureau of Land Management approved the pipeline’s crossing of approximately 16 miles of federal land, with a permanent 50-foot-wide right-of-way. BLM recorded an April 27 finding of no significant impact and a May 1 decision.
The pipeline also ran into a right-of-way dispute involving New Mexico state trust lands. Energy Transfer affiliates sought rights-of-way for about 2,000 feet and 3,200 feet of the pipeline and a commercial lease for the Green Chili meter station, proposed to connect the lateral to the existing El Paso natural gas line.
The State Land Office canceled those applications in March. State Lands Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard denied Energy Transfer’s request for reconsideration on July 14, saying the proposed rights-of-way and lease were not in the best interest of the state land trust.
Energy Transfer did not respond to questions about the construction status of the pipeline, critical path approvals or the availability of gas for commissioning the microgrid. STACK says Blue Owl and Oracle remain “fully aligned” and that the force majeure notice does not change their financial commitments, but did not respond to ENR’s construction or critical path questions.
Oracle maintains that the Project Jupiter 2028 delivery schedule has not changed. New Mexico’s environmental agency faces a Nov. 23 deadline for the microgrid construction permit, while Transwestern’s goal of having the pipeline in service is February 2027.
