SpaceX is moving forward with plans to construct an eight-mile natural gas pipeline — dubbed “Starpipe” — connecting to its launch facilities in Texas as early as next month, according to county documents reviewed by Reuters. The goal is to support a significant increase in launches of the company’s next-generation Starship rocket.
According to a filing made last month with the Texas Railroad Commission by SpaceX affiliate Lone Star Mineral Development, the pipeline is expected to be operational by January 26. Starpipe will terminate at Starbase, SpaceX’s company town in Texas.
The project, first reported by the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, reflects Elon Musk’s ambition to dramatically speed up Starship development and increase its flight frequency. The towering 40-story rocket is central to SpaceX’s plans to grow its Starlink broadband network, launch orbital AI data center satellites, and eventually send astronauts to both the moon and Mars.
Starship is designed to be fully reusable and consumes roughly 630,000 gallons — about 2.4 million liters — of liquid methane per launch. Currently, that fuel is delivered by hundreds of tanker trucks over the course of several hours, a method that is incompatible with Musk’s vision for scaling up launches. The rocket has completed 12 test flights since 2023, but Musk has stated he wants to eventually reach hundreds and even thousands of launches per year.
SpaceX did not return a request for comment from Reuters.
While it is uncommon for a space company to construct its own natural gas pipeline for rocket fuel, Starpipe may only be the first step in a more ambitious long-term strategy. A Reuters review of Cameron County land records shows SpaceX has spent years exploring potential drilling operations near Starbase and across Texas.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC on June 12, the day the company went public, that SpaceX intended to build pipelines, process its own propellant, and was actively looking into drilling for its own natural gas.
Texas oil and gas consultant Stan Lindsey noted that venturing into natural gas extraction would be a tall order for a company without experience in that industry. “I’m not saying it’s beyond the realm of possibility … it’s possible they got a really nice prospect,” Lindsey said. He added that if the drilling plans don’t pan out, “they’ve got a fallback position” in Starpipe.
Land records show SpaceX has signed more than 100 paid-up oil and gas leases with Texas landowners since 2023.
Starpipe is slated to originate on an 83-acre tract at the Port of Brownsville, which SpaceX is reportedly in talks to lease from the city for 50 years, according to a port official who spoke with Reuters anonymously due to the private nature of the negotiations.
Engineering documents SpaceX submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — included in a public notice from last August — indicate the company wants to build a liquefaction facility at Starbase to convert the piped-in natural gas into liquid methane on-site.
“Certainly that would make the most efficient sense,” said William Farrar, a Texas oil and gas attorney and geoscientist with extensive experience in the field.
Lindsey also noted that SpaceX could potentially tap into a pipeline expansion project by Enbridge — the Valley Crossing Pipeline — which would run near the starting point of Starpipe. Enbridge did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SpaceX’s expansion into gas infrastructure — an area traditionally dominated by energy and pipeline companies — highlights the firm’s long-held strategy of owning as much of its supply chain as possible. That capital-heavy approach has helped SpaceX outpace competitors in rocket and spacecraft development.
The pipeline’s 16-inch diameter suggests the company anticipates fuel needs well beyond the 25 launches per year currently authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration.
According to SpaceX’s initial public offering prospectus, the company ultimately aims to deploy thousands of solar-powered, AI-focused satellites whose combined energy output could approach one-fifth of the entire U.S. power grid.
