Alaska’s $44 Billion LNG Project Nears Key Milestone As Pipeline Study Wraps Up

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

The proponents of the $44-billion Alaska LNG are expected to complete by the end of the year the crucial engineering and cost study for an 800-mile-long pipeline set to service the export project, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has said.

“There’s a lot of optimism about the Alaska LNG project, and the FEED study should be coming out in December of this year, and I think that we’re going to see a lot of interest in that project,” Burgum said at an event hosted by the American Petroleum Institute (API), as carried by Reuters.

The Alaska LNG project is designed to deliver North Slope natural gas to Alaskans and export LNG to U.S. allies across the Pacific. An 800-mile pipeline is planned to transport the gas from the production centers in the North Slope to south-central Alaska for exports. In addition, multiple gas interconnection points will ensure meeting in-state gas demand.

The Alaska LNG project is a joint venture between U.S. energy developer Glenfarne Group and Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, a company owned by the state of Alaska.

Energy companies are ready to commit to buying $115 billion worth of LNG from Alaska once President Donald Trump’s pet energy project gets done, Glenfarne said in June, noting that as many as 50 companies have expressed formal interest.

U.S. officials toured Asia earlier this year in search of potential Asian investors in the LNG project. The LNG export facility is strongly supported by the Trump Administration, which has also been pressing Japan and South Korea to buy more LNG as a way to reduce America’s trade deficit with its Asian allies.

Japanese and other Asian companies have been considering investments in the $44-billion Alaska LNG project, but so far they have appeared to be concerned that the costs may be too high, considering the cold weather in Alaska and the scale of the pipelines needed to bring the project on stream.