The Alaska Liquefied Natural Gas Project picked up another non-binding pledge of support this week from the largest publicly traded company in Thailand. That’s according to Glenfarne Group LLC, the company that took on majority ownership of the project from the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation in March. The agreement is the latest evidence of project momentum, but still leaves skeptics concerned about the lack of binding agreements.
If it’s built, the Alaska LNG Project would move natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral for export. The project is made up of three parts: a gas treatment plant on the Slope, an 800-mile pipeline and a liquefaction and export facility in Nikiski.
PTT Public Company Limited signed an agreement for “strategic participation” in the project. If the agreement evolves into a binding contract, the company would be on the hook for 2 million tonnes of LNG per year for 20 years. With the agreement, project leads say half of the project’s potential gas exports are reserved.
Glenfarne spokesperson Micah Hirschfield declined to say what other companies the project has received similar agreements from. And he said the company’s not disclosing what proportion of the export reservations come from the agreements signed this year.
The announcement comes about three weeks after the project took center stage at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference. The event brought international delegations to Anchorage, including from Taiwan. The project has a separate, similar agreement with another Taiwanese company, signed earlier this year.
At the conference, Gov. Mike Dunleavy told KDLL he has confidence in Brendan Duval, Glenfarne’s CEO.
“He's an LNG guy,” Dunleavy said of Duval. “He's looking at the costs, and he believes this is cost effective.”
The project’s high costs have long stalled work on the project, which has been floated for decades. But interest by President Donald Trump has thrust the project onto the national and international stage. This month, it brought cabinet members to the North Slope to promote Alaska’s energy resources.
Alaska oil and gas analyst Larry Persily used to be the pipeline’s federal coordinator. He says Trump’s statements of support only matter if he backs them up with a financial commitment from the federal government. And Persily, like some others, says international interest may be reactionary to Trump policies.
“Nobody in Asia is going to sign a commitment for unknown risk on an unknown project, just because Trump says so,” Persily said. “He changes his mind every week. In some ways it's good that you have Trump behind you on this project. In other ways it's bad, because who knows what Trump will do next week?”
The most recent estimate puts the cost for all three parts at around $44 billion. But that estimate’s about a decade old. Glenfarne’s brought on another company to update the costs to 2025 dollars by the end of the year. And the company wants a final investment decision for the pipeline part by the end of the year, too.
But Persily is skeptical about Glenfarne’s proposed timeline. He says it’s “totally unrealistic” given outstanding questions about costs and contract.
“It's aspirational, but it's not realistic to say, ‘Oh, we're going to make a multi-billion dollar commitment to order steel and work camps and equipment six months from now,’” Persily said. “It's just not there.”
Other project skeptics point to the lack of binding offtake agreements and steep costs as major ongoing hurdles. Despite Trump’s interest, it’s unclear whether the federal government is going to help pay for the project. Dunleavy thinks private companies will step up.
“The capital is there,” he said. “We just have to get through the FEED on the pipeline over the next few months, and then offtake agreements being signed over the next few months. And I think you have a pipeline at that stage.”
Dunleavy espoused a tone of cautious optimism. He says Kenai Peninsula residents should feel the same.
“The Kenai is going to be ground central for the export facility,” he said. “And if I were the people in Kenai, I would start to be very optimistic, cautiously, but very optimistic.”
Glenfarne Group LLC is sharing updates on the Alaska LNG Project on its website.
