More than a thousand people from around the world gathered in Anchorage this week for the fourth annual Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference. Across three days of panels and talks, the spectre of the long-sought Alaska liquefied natural gas megaproject loomed large. Project optimism was unmired by some of its outstanding question marks.
Sitting in grey armchairs, with a large image of a moose behind them, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval came together on the last day of the conference to reflect and ruminate on the, literal, pipe dream.
“I'm going to ask the question that I probably shouldn't ask – confidence level,” Dunleavy said to Duval, “Are we gonna have a pipeline here in a few years?”
“Well, I see every reason why we will, and I've come here and I've put my name on it, and when I put my name on something, I'm stuck,” Duval responded. “I’ve got to get it done, and the fundamentals allowed me to do that with good decision making, not rolling a die. So the answer is yes.”
Duval says his company is taking the Alaska LNG Project one step at a time. He’s the founder and CEO of Glenfarne, which assumed majority ownership of the project from the State of Alaska earlier this year.
“There are three phases,” he said. “Each of them can reach their final investment decision, attract capital and independent financings. So these are really bite-sized financings.”
The three phases correspond to the three elements of the project: an 807-mile pipeline, a liquefaction and export facility in Nikiski and a North Slope gas treatment plant. The project’s been floated for decades, but the steep cost — $44 billion at last count — has stymied any real progress.
Glenfarne recently announced Worley Limited as the company that will update the project costs to 2025 dollars. Glenfarne has a stated goal of bringing on investors by the end of the year. Also this week, the company announced a cohort of potential investors that Glenfarne says have “expressed interest” in the project. But what it really needs is buyers.
U.S. Energy Secretary Doug Burgum suggested during a Sunday [6/1] roundtable in Anchorage investors will fall in line once buyers sign on.
“If we get offtake agreements, if we sell energy to our Pacific allies, there will be people lined up to finance it,” he said. “We won’t take foreign capital to build the pipeline. There may be foreign interest in wanting to be part of it because it’s going to be a great project. But what we really need is customers.”
But as of Thursday, there aren’t any offtake agreements. Not any binding ones, anyway. Earlier this year, Glenfarne and Dunleavy celebrated a letter of intent from Taiwan’s state-owned CPC Corporation, signed while the governor toured Asia to promote the project.
The state-run Alaska Gasline Development Corporation has previously said the project has multiple other non-binding intent letters. But the corporation has not disclosed which companies have signed those letters.
Pan Men-an, a high level Taiwanese official, says the project is his country’s “best choice,” for building energy resilience.
“The government of Taiwan is ready to expand its procurement of natural gas, agricultural goods and industrial products from the United States,” he said through a translator. “Alaska stands at the center of this endeavor.”
If built, Men-an said the project could become Taiwan’s “primary source of energy.” Right now, the United States accounts for about a tenth of Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas imports.
Taiwan isn’t the only country expressing interest. U.S. cabinet members joined delegates from Japan, the Philippines and South Korea for a tour of the heart of Alaska’s oil and gas economy during a Monday visit to the North Slope. And the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s mayor says he’s hosted his own slew of international delegations in recent months.
But some, like Nikiski Republican Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, say they’re ready to see some tangible results.
“Enthusiasm doesn't equal a decision to invest in a project, doesn't – doesn't equal an agreement to have a project move forward that's going to benefit Alaskans,” he said. “That's what I want.”
Even Duval agrees turning the pipeline dream into a reality is a tall order.
“There's no doubt this is going to be really, really hard and a lot of angst,” he said. “But it really is a tremendous opportunity, and I invite everyone in the room to be part of it and step forward where you want to be involved.”
He says his strategy is a simple one, “never give up.”
