President Donald Trump voiced his support for a long-discussed – but unbuilt – Alaska energy project during his first address to Congress since taking office in January.
“My administration is working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each,” he said during Tuesday night’s speech. “There’s never been anything like that one. It will be truly spectacular. It’s all set to go. The permitting is gotten.”
That pipeline is known as Alaska LNG, a massive proposed project that would send natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope 800 miles south to Nikiski, where it would get cooled to a liquid state and exported overseas — most likely to America’s Pacific allies like Japan.
Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday wasn’t the first or even the second time Trump has touted the pipeline since taking office. And he supported the project during his first term, too. But different versions of the project have been discussed in Alaska for decades, and there are longstanding questions about how it would pencil out.
So how accurate were Trump’s statements about the project? And what else do we know about it?
Would it be ‘gigantic’? Would it be among the world's largest?
Gigantic is a relative term.
The Alaska LNG Project pipeline would be far from the longest in the world. That title goes to Russia’s Druzhba Pipeline, which covers more than 3,100 miles in Europe. In North America, the Keystone Oil Pipeline runs more than 2,100 miles between Canada and the United states.
But at 42 inches, it would be large in diameter. A 2021 report from Global Energy Monitor puts the average pipeline diameter at 30 inches. The Keystone pipeline is 36 inches in diameter.
What about Japan and South Korea investing trillions each?
Foreign support for the Alaska LNG Project has ebbed and flowed over the last decade.
During a press conference last month, Trump announced a joint venture for the project with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. That announcement followed a similar agreement with Beijing in 2017 and trips abroad by Alaska executives to drum up support.
In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported ambivalence about the project from prospective buyers in Japan and South Korea, who had concerns about the project’s costs, timeline and impact on climate change.
But last week, the New York Times described new interest from prospective partners in Asia as a way to placate Trump amid tariff threats.
Still, as of Wednesday, there aren’t any binding agreements with anyone to buy gas from the project, if it’s built. But the project does have what’s called a gas sales precedent agreement with Great Bear Pantheon, an Alaska-based oil exploration company, to buy up to 500 million cubic feet of gas per day. The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation says that’s “more than enough” to meet in-state gas needs.
And it's still unclear who exactly might pay to build the project. Its hefty price tag has long stalled efforts to move work along. Current estimates put the project cost at $44 billion. A study commissioned by state lawmakers last year puts the price tag at about $11 billion for the pipeline alone.
Late last year, the state did get a $50 million pledge from state developers. That money’s meant to lower the risk for whatever company decides to take on the work of updating the project’s engineering and design cost estimates to 2025 numbers.
Tim Fitzpatrick, spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, said Trump’s comment about trillions from Japan and Korea could refer to future purchases of liquefied natural gas from Alaska. But he confirmed there are no purchase agreements now.
Is the permitting really ‘gotten’?
The project received the bulk of its permits from federal regulators in 2020, which the corporation says it’s kept “up to speed.”
“If there's any additional work efforts that are being asked of us by the agencies, we're providing that,” Richards said. “When we take a final investment decision, we're able to move forward.”
Some of the project’s existing federal permits have expiration dates. But Richards says the corporation can apply for extensions as long as it shows the project is being advanced.
Trump’s was the longest modern address to Congress – but how did Alaska LNG get in there?
Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan was quick to celebrate Trump’s comments Tuesday — he recorded a video from the Senate subway after the address. According to Sullivan’s office, he “personally pitched” the project to Trump in January.
“People have always been naysayers – ‘We're not there yet,’” he said. “Gov. Dunleavy and I worked this really hard to encourage the president and his team to put it in the State of the Union. They did. That was a huge win for us.”