The proposed Alaska LNG project, if it happens, would be a blow to BC and Canada, as it would directly compete with BC LNG.
It would be the first US LNG-for-export plant on the West Coast, and thus undermine BC’s current advantage of being able to move LNG to Asia in as little as 10 days, compared with 24 days (plus fees of US$450,000 or more to use the Panama Canal) from US plants on the Gulf of Mexico.
The advantage not only keeps BC shippers’ bills down (it can cost more than US$36,000 a day a day to charter an LNG carrier); it also reduces the amount of emissions from the LNG carriers.
Now US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for Alaska LNG, which would mean building a 1,300-km pipeline to carry gas from Alaska’s North Slope, and rebuilding an export terminal at Nikiski on the south coast. There is a modest LNG import/export terminal at Nikiski, but it has been mothballed since 2017.
Pipeline developer 8 Star Alaska says a key decision on construction of the gas pipeline is expected by the end of the year.
The first phase of pipeline construction would serve the existing Anchorage-area gas distribution system, for in-state use. Phase 2 would serve the export terminal at Nikiski.
The costs of the Alaska LNG project have been put at as much as US$60 billion ($82 billion Canadian).
Trump on Day One of his office, in January, signed an executive order, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” which declared the Alaska LNG project a top priority of his administration.
In March, he said in his State of the Nation speech that Japan, Korea and other nations want to be partners with the US in Alaska LNG “with investments of trillions of dollars each.”
In April, Trump claimed he had met with the acting leader of South Korea and talked about many things, including “their joint venture in an Alaska Pipeline.”
In July, Trump announced a “joint venture” with Japan, saying: “Japan will soon begin importing historic new shipments of clean American liquefied natural gas in record numbers . . .
“We’re talking about the pipeline in Alaska, which is the closest point of major oil and gas to Japan by far . . . We’re talking about a joint venture of some type between Japan and us having to do with Alaska oil and gas.”
In July, Trump claimed at the White House that Japan is “forming a joint venture with us at, in Alaska, as you know for the LNG. . . . They’re all set to make that deal now so I think it’s good. . . . “We’re gonna make a deal with Japan on the LNG in Alaska.”
Alaska LNG developer Glenfarne Alaska LNG LLC says more than 50 companies from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, India, the US and the European Union took part in June in the first round of its strategic partner selection process for the Alaska LNG project. But it has announced no partners.
And it’s not at all clear whether Trump’s announcements mean purchasing contracts actually exist, or are simply political pie-in-the-sky announcements.
Asian parties he cites have not confirmed that any purchasing plans and pricing have been signed. Japan, for one, has officially said only that it had agreed to “examine Alaska LNG”. And, later, that it is “exploring” agreements to buy LNG from Alaska.
Trump promptly said a “framework agreement” means that “Japan will make stable and long-term incremental purchases of U.S. energy, including liquified natural gas, totaling $7 billion per year.” But he gave no details on when and how all this would happen.
The Financial Review reports: ”No Asian companies have made equity investments in the project, while Japanese and South Korean buyers are yet to sign even nonbinding letters of intent to purchase gas from it, despite trade deals with Tokyo and Seoul.”
And Dermot Cole, Alaska reporter and commentator, writes how Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy “just returned from South Korea with nothing in hand, not even a non-binding letter of intent to purchase gas from Alaska or to join an imaginary joint venture.”
The longer it stays as imaginary pie in the sky the happier BC and Canada and our LNG producers will be.
(Posted here 02 September 2025)
