The Trump administration is confident that Alaska’s massive liquefied natural gas project will find investors despite the enormous cost.
President Donald Trump is ahead Alaska LNG As a national priority after taking office. Alaska is already trying to build an 800-mile pipeline from the north slope of the Arctic Circle to the Cook Inlet, where the gas is cooled and transported to the Asian allies.
But Alaska LNG has never been out of the ground due to the price of an atmospheric price of more than 40 billion. Trump has demanded that Japan and South Korea specifically invest in the project, threatening with more tariffs if they do not give them trade agreements.
“If you get commercial offtakers for gas, finances are very simple,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan at Prudho Bay in Alaska. “Countries around the world are looking to shrink their trade deficit with the United States, and the easiest way to do so is to buy more American energy,” Wright said.
However, energy analysts have been skeptical of the project. Alaska LNG “does not have a clear cut commercial logic,” Rapidan Energy’s Global Gas and LNG Research Director Alex Munton told CNBC in April.
“If it did, it had more support than ever had, and the project was literally on the planning board for decades,” Munton said.
Support of the Defense Department
Right said the project would be built in stages and initially meet the domestic demand in Alaska, which is deteriorating natural gas supply at Cook Inlet. Internal Secretary Doug Bergam said the Defense Department was ready to support the plan with its resources.
“They are ready to sign an offtake deal from this pipeline to get gas to our super strategic and key bases across Alaska,” Burgam said in a CNBC interview at Prudho Bay.
If Alaska LNG is completed, it will deliver us natural gas to Japan in about eight days, with the Gulf coastal export, which will pass through the crowded Panama Canal. South China avoids competitive water in the Sea, and LNG exports pass from the Middle East, the Interior Secretary said.
Asia’s potential investors have questions about Alaska LNG’s timeline and logistics, Wright said. The pipeline could be delivered to LNG to South Alaska in 2028 or 2029, and exports to Asia begin in the early 2030s, Right said.
Glenforn Group of the project’s leading developer, Told CNBC in April The final investment decision is expected in the next six to 12 months in the leg of the proposed pipeline, which is moving from the northern slope to the anchorage. Glenforn is a private developer, a New York City and Houston -based energy infrastructure owner and operator.
