Williams Trading Volume Drops 40.69% Ranking 253rd as $1.6 Billion Project Socrates Drives Data Center Demand

On March 27, 2025, The's trading volume was $319 million, a 40.69% decrease from the previous day, ranking 253rd in the day's stock market. Williams (WMB) fell 0.87%, marking its third consecutive day of decline, with a total drop of 2.72% over the past three days.

Williams (WMB) is investing $1.6 billion in Project Socrates, a significant initiative aimed at meeting the growing demand for data centers. The project, scheduled for completion in the second half of 2026, includes a power generation facility in Ohio and a supporting pipeline network. Backed by 10-year contracts, the project is expected to generate annual revenue of $320 million in WMB’s transmission segment.

Project Socrates is part of a broader trend of data center development in Franklin County, Ohio, which is set to host 2.2 GW of load from new data centers by developers such as AWS, DBT, Google, and Vantage. The project's facilities could support both announced projects and potential future AI growth plans.

Williams will back both the pipeline and generation components of the project. The tight timeline suggests the pipeline will likely be intrastate, utilizing WMB’s existing systems in Ohio, such as Blue Racer, Cardinal, and Flint G&P, which may serve as origination points for the gas needed to support the project.

The boom in data centers is driving gas demand growth and creating expansion opportunities for midstream companies. If WMB sources the gas from its own G&P footprint, it can optimize the full value chain by gathering, transporting, and converting gas to electricity, earning a rate at each stage. This strategy would increase in-basin consumption and allow Northeast gas production to grow relative to current expectations.