President Donald Trump on Friday announced a joint venture with Japan for the Alaska LNG Project. If it’s built, the $44 billion project would move gas from the North Slope through an 800-mile pipeline to a liquefaction facility in Nikiski for shipment overseas.
In a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Trump said the two spoke “at length” about the project, which he called exciting.
“Japan will soon begin importing historic new shipments of clean American liquefied natural gas in record numbers,” he said. “It'll be record numbers.”
The announcement followed talks during Ishiba’s first summit with the president. Speaking through a translator, Ishiba said his country isn’t just interested in LNG.
“As the country of Japan, we are interested in importing not just LNG but also bioethanol, ammonia,and other resources at a stable price, a reasonable price from the United States,” Ishiba said. “And we also want to improve the trade deficit that the U.S. has towards Japan.”
It isn’t the first time the U.S. has announced project progress through an agreement with another country. Former Gov. Bill Walker signed an agreement in Beijing in 2017. And before that, former Gov. Sean Parnell traveled to Japan to promote the project.
Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan celebrated the joint venture and thanked Trump for his work on the issue in a social media post shared Friday.
“With his leadership, we will get the Alaska LNG Project built, which will create thousands of good-paying jobs, reinvigorate our American steel industry, significantly reduce our trade deficit in Asia, and deliver clean-burning Alaska gas for Americans, our military, and our allies in the Asia-Pacific, like Japan,” he wrote.
Trump has been a vocal supporter of the Alaska LNG Project. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order vowing to unleash Alaska’s energy potential, including through the pipeline proposal.
But as recently as last week, Alaska lawmakers continued to express concerns about where the money to build the expensive project will come from. The project scope includes a treatment facility on the slope, the pipeline and a liquefaction plant in Nikiski. A recent study commissioned by the legislature estimated the pipeline alone would cost roughly $11 billion.
A report commissioned by state lawmakers estimates that, if the Alaska LNG Project is built, the first exports wouldn’t happen until 2031.
Tim Fitzpatrick is the spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation. That’s the state agency heading the project. He said the joint venture revives the two countries’ decades-long LNG partnership.
“Alaska LNG’s competitive cost, abundant supply, and close proximity to Japan make this project a vital trade and energy security enhancement for our two nations," he wrote in an email. "We welcome further Japanese support and engagement and look forward to continuing our discussions following today’s important advancements.”
Fitzpatrick also said the federal government has committed loan guarantees that are currently valued at $30 billion. He says those guarantees reduce the project’s debt cost, make it more attractive to investors and lower the project’s energy costs.
Friday’s announcement came a day after a trio of companies announced their plans to revive and redevelop Marathon Petroleum’s LNG facility in Nikiski to an import terminal. That facility was previously used to send LNG almost exclusively to Japan.
Copyright 2025 KDLL