Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) has sent a force majeure notice to the developer of Project Jupiter, a 2.45-gigawatt AI campus in New Mexico built for OpenAI, citing a pipeline delay beyond its control.
The notice was sent to a unit of Blue Owl Capital (NYSE: OWL), the campus developer, and formally asserts that events outside Oracle’s control could stall the massive project.
The pipeline serving Project Jupiter, operated by Energy Transfer LP, was forced into a reroute after state regulators rejected its original path, pushing the targeted in-service date to next year.
Bloomberg reported on October 8, 2026, that Oracle is weighing trucked compressed natural gas as a stopgap measure so that parts of Jupiter can open before a permanent pipeline arrives.
Oracle shares fell approximately 5.5% on the day of the Bloomberg report, reflecting investor concern over the regulatory and infrastructure setbacks surrounding the project.
The force majeure notice is less an exit strategy and more a mechanism to delay rent payments, with Oracle retaining the option to defer payments for three years once they begin, should both sides agree a power-related event occurred.
Oracle has stated it remains “fully committed to New Mexico,” and analysts note the notice does not signal any intention to abandon the project or its lease obligations.
Brokerage William Blair said the news intensifies worries about regulatory and power-related delays affecting AI deployments, but added that “practically, fiscal 2027 should not be affected, since Jupiter contributes no revenue this year.”
The sharper financial exposure from the delay falls on the developer’s lenders, with approximately 20 banks having provided an $18 billion construction loan that now trades at a discount.
Trucked compressed natural gas carries a steep cost premium, coming in at roughly four times hub prices once labor, equipment, and fuel are factored in, according to East Daley Analytics as cited by Bloomberg.
Oracle has prior experience with this workaround, having run a data center outside Salt Lake City on trucked natural gas for more than a year, and has deployed the same approach at AI data centers in Texas.
The Project Jupiter delay underscores a growing reality for AI infrastructure development: the binding constraint is no longer semiconductor supply or customer demand, but permits and physical power delivery.
Oracle’s $664 billion backlog, built largely on its landmark partnership with OpenAI, now faces heightened scrutiny over whether the underlying physical infrastructure can realistically be delivered on schedule.
