The company will invest about $3.1 billion in Southern Natural Gas' Southeast Connector project and $1.6 billion in Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America's Permian Link. The Southeast Connector will carry up to 2.6 billion cubic feet per day through roughly 470 miles of new pipeline to growing markets in the US Southeast, with phased service beginning in the fourth quarter of 2030. The Permian Link will transport about 2.8 Bcf/d from the Permian Basin near Pecos County, Texas, to NGPL's Midcontinent system through roughly 434 miles of new pipeline, targeting service in the third quarter of 2030 (Reuters, 2026).
The Permian Link is anchored by an investment-grade hyperscale data center customer under a contract of at least 20 years, with interest from additional customers beyond that initial tenant, executives said on the earnings call (RBN Energy, 2026). CFO David Michels highlighted the project's link to storage as a differentiator, providing the flexibility and reliability that hyperscalers require (RBN Energy, 2026). The approvals lifted Kinder Morgan's natural gas project backlog to a record $13.2 billion, representing roughly 92 percent of its total $14.4 billion expansion backlog (Kinder Morgan, 2026). The company also reported adjusted profit of 35 cents per share for the quarter ended September 30, beating analyst estimates of 32 cents, and shares rose 2.7 percent in extended trading.
BuiltWorld AI Operational Take: The storage link on Permian Link is the detail that matters most for data center operators. Intermittent renewables and fluctuating grid supply make firm, dispatchable gas capacity essential for AI workloads, and pipeline-connected storage gives hyperscalers a buffer that pure generation contracts do not. The 2030 in-service dates mean the data centers relying on this gas will need interim power arrangements for several years, a gap that project teams should be planning around now rather than treating as a 2030 problem.
