Oracle uses natural gas trucks to power data centers - report

Oracle Corp. is employing natural gas trucks to fuel data centers while constructing pipeline infrastructure, as detailed in a Bloomberg report on Thursday. The company successfully operated a data center near Salt Lake City for more than a year using truck deliveries, awaiting pipeline completion, reported the source. Oracle is reportedly employing the same method at an OpenAI facility under construction in Shackelford County, Texas.

The report also mentions Oracle considering this approach in New Mexico, where a delayed gas pipeline is threatening the timeline of Project Jupiter, a data center. By using this method, Oracle aims to bring certain stages of the facility online ahead of pipeline service. In a recent letter to the project's developer, Oracle issued a force majeure notice, potentially shielding the company from certain payments if further delays arise.

However, Energy Transfer LP had to reroute the pipeline serving Oracle's Utah data center after state regulators rejected an initial route, pushing the targeted service date from this summer to next year. Companies such as Certarus, operated by Superior Plus Corp., and VoltaGrid LLC are providing compressed gas transportation services as interim power solutions during pipeline construction.

Oracle has utilized Certarus for gas deliveries at the Utah project and VoltaGrid in Texas. Oracle's free cash flow is currently negative and projected to remain so until additional AI data centers are completed.