Oracle Moves Gas by Trucks to Avoid Data Center Power Delays

Oracle Corp. is using a novel power strategy to keep several data centers on track: trucking natural gas directly to the server farms.

The truck deliveries kept a data center on the outskirts of Salt Lake City moving forward for more than a year as Oracle waited for a gas pipeline to be built and integrated with its machinery, according to people familiar with the work. The company also is using this approach to get initial work done at one of its campuses being built for OpenAI in Shackelford County, Texas, one of the people said.

Now, Oracle is considering using the same strategy in New Mexico, where a gas pipeline to help power one of its most crucial data centers is delayed and threatening the project’s timeline, according to people familiar with the project. A plan to use trucks to deliver compressed natural gas to the data center, called Project Jupiter, would let the company get the early stages of it online before the pipeline enters service, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the strategy hasn’t been made public.

The stakes are high. Last month, Oracle sent a notice citing force majeure to the New Mexico project’s developer, which may shield the company from making some payments in case of further delays.

Oracle didn’t respond to a request for comment. The shares dropped about 5.5% after the report.

Power has emerged as a major bottleneck to the AI data center boom. Many of the significant server farm developments are using on-site power plants that burn natural gas to provide electricity. The gas would typically be delivered by a pipeline, which can take months to design and build.

Pipelines can also be delayed by regulatory action. In New Mexico, pipeline operator Energy Transfer LP had to reroute the project that will ultimately power Oracle’s data center after a proposed route was rejected by state regulators. That pushed the pipeline firm’s targeted in-service date to next year, rather than this summer.

Given the challenges to quickly ensure a supply of gas, a cluster of companies that specialize in compressing gas and transporting it via truck have seized on the frenzy by data center developers to start generating computing power as quickly as possible. These firms, including Superior Plus Corp.’s Certarus and VoltaGrid LLC, are pitching their so-called virtual pipeline services as a transitional power solution while waiting for a pipeline to come online.

Delivering compressed natural gas via truck is not easy nor cheap. When including the cost of labor, specialized equipment and fuel to move the trucks themselves, the delivered cost is roughly four times the price of gas sent through a major pipeline hub, according to Jack Weixel, senior director of energy analysis at East Daley Analytics. Gas must be taken from a pipeline, compressed into a trailer, driven sometimes multiple hours to a site, and then decompressed to fill generators. Even a relatively small AI data center requires trucks making deliveries constantly throughout the day.

This cost and complexity is part of the reason why compressed gas has mostly been relegated to specialized industrial operations, such as mining or oil drilling, that take place in remote areas far from interconnection points with the electric grid.

Still, it may be the best stopgap for a company like Oracle, which has put billions of dollars and its reputation on quickly delivering data centers for customers including OpenAI. Oracle’s free cash flow is currently negative and expected to remain that way until more of its AI data centers are completed. At the Utah project, Oracle’s gas deliveries were powered by Certarus. In Texas, they are provided by VoltaGrid.

“Shoutout to the VoltaGrid team for finding cost-effective power solutions to ensure our customers can access OCI capacity on schedule,” Oracle wrote on social media shortly after receiving a request for comment on this story, referring to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. VoltaGrid, similarly to Oracle, didn’t respond to a request for comment, but posted on social media about the partnership.

Certarus declined to comment on specific deals, but said the extended timelines for data centers to secure connections with pipelines and the grid “have created a growing need for rapidly deployable and scalable energy solutions.”

The big question is how far this solution can expand. Given Project Jupiter’s size, even powering a small fraction of its full capacity would require dozens of truck deliveries a day. If Oracle powered just 100 megawatts — about 4% of its ultimate 2.45-gigawatt footprint — with CNG deliveries, each large trailer would only provide about 40 minutes of electricity, said Ellie Holbrook, an energy analyst at SemiAnalysis.