DOÑA ANA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO · POWER / INFRASTRUCTURE · DATA CENTERS
Archive item · Events of August 17, 2026
What happened: Energy Transfer’s filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission moved the in-service date of its “Green Chile Project,” a gas lateral from the El Paso area to the Oracle–OpenAI Project Jupiter data center site, from August 2026 to February 2027, Source New Mexico’s Joshua Bowling reported.
Claim: An Oracle spokesperson said “Project Jupiter remains on schedule.”
Check: The filings establish that the pipeline itself is delayed. They do not show whether the data center depends on that pipeline for its first phase, so the reporting does not prove Oracle’s statement wrong. The two statements describe different things, and readers should keep them separate.
Concern: New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard rejected two requests to cross state trust land, citing “extreme” burdens on natural resources. The Sierra Club warned about water, desert ecosystems and new fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Outcome: Delayed. The pipeline still needs federal review and a route that avoids the denied state land.
Location Decision takeaway
For large data centers, the project is only as ready as its fuel and power path. Communities and investors should ask for the energy supply schedule alongside the building schedule.
Original reporting: Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico, August 17, 2026.
About this item: Contested Ground items are sourced and written by AI from the credited reporting and public records linked above, following Location Decision’s editorial standards. We publish them to track disputes over what America builds and to inform Location Decision’s broader editorial analysis. They are not independent reporting by our staff.