Key facts
- SOCAR agreed to pay $1.65 billion for minority stakes in Comstock's Haynesville shale assets and its Pinnacle Gas Services subsidiary.
- The package includes 20% of Comstock's legacy Haynesville assets and 15% of Western Haynesville.
- SOCAR would hold 15% of Comstock's majority interest in gas infrastructure subsidiary Pinnacle Gas Services.
- Brendan Steinhauser told NBC News that data centers were on the ballot and lost in the midterm elections.
Azerbaijan's state oil and gas company SOCAR agreed to buy minority stakes in Comstock's Haynesville shale assets and in a gas infrastructure subsidiary for $1.65 billion, the companies reported on November 5, 2026.
The package covers a 20% stake in Comstock's legacy Haynesville assets, a 15% stake in Western Haynesville and 15% of Comstock's majority interest in gas infrastructure subsidiary Pinnacle Gas Services.
The report linked the deal to expectations of extended growth in global natural gas demand and in US demand, driven by data center construction tied to artificial intelligence. It said those expectations may need revising after the Democrats' midterm election victory, with some candidates campaigning to curb data center proliferation. Opposition to data centers has grown in states where they are concentrated, with opponents citing their energy consumption and the risk of higher electricity bills.
"Data centers were on the ballot, and they got trounced," Brendan Steinhauser, chief executive of Alliance for Secure AI, told NBC News. "The moratoria were very popular, data centers were very unpopular, and it was clear across different states and different communities."
The report said the outlook for natural gas demand is likely to remain robust even if US data center construction slows, and that gas is widely considered the simplest alternative to coal generation because it provides baseload power at lower pollution and CO2 emission rates.