Deep River Data AI Data Center, Sanford, North Carolina

This one would burn its own gas, from a well drilled in 1998. Deep River Data, a company incorporated in Alamance County on April 30, 2025, wants to put a data center on a 643 acre forested tract just south of US Highway 421 near the Lee and Chatham county line, powered from Butler Well Number 3, a vertical well sunk 2,655 feet into black shale and old coal deposits. The land belongs to Ed Myrick of Pompano Beach, Florida; the mineral rights belong to Dan Butler of Southern Pines, who holds rights under more than 2,700 acres in Lee County.

The company's adviser, Dan Spuller, a crypto entrepreneur and natural gas landman, contacted the state Oil and Gas Commission about the project in September 2025. Spuller said the company was evaluating whether the well can safely and efficiently produce gas by conventional methods rather than fracking, and that it remains in a pre-feasibility phase. Fracking is legal in North Carolina, and Lee County's own fracking moratoriums, from 2017 and 2019, have both expired.

The site sits less than a tenth of a mile from the Deep River and Patterson Creek. Nearly 23 miles of the Deep River are on the federal impaired waters list, carrying 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen. Stephanie Stephens, the Deep River riverkeeper, said the county should be choosy about the industry it takes: "We already have a polluted river." Therese Vick of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League said: "The Oil and Gas Commission must look carefully at this proposal to exploit the gas well near the Deep River, as well as those who want to develop it."

Duke Energy has projected that data centers could add nearly six gigawatts to North Carolina's demand, which is the wider reason a company would go looking for its own gas rather than wait in a utility queue.

The entry stands as proposed with no acreage, no capacity and no cost. Eleven jurisdictions within reach now carry moratoriums or zoning limits, including Lee County itself from June 16, 2026 and Sanford from August 5, plus Chatham County from February 11. The 964 megawatt Harris nuclear station is 29 kilometres away, and a CyrusOne site sits 14 kilometres off.