Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has buoyed hopes for the 800-mile, $44 billion Alaska LNG pipeline project. And the project has taken some important steps forward in recent months.
But you’d be forgiven for being skeptical. Alaskans have dreamed for decades of a line that would bring the North Slope’s immense gas reserves south for export.
But there’s a reason it hasn’t happened: Nobody has wanted to pay for it.
So, is a gasline more likely than ever? Or is this déjà vu all over again?
‘It’s closer than ever to becoming a reality’
Suffice it to say that Gov. Mike Dunleavy was encouraged when he heard Trump call out the gasline project: “My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska,” the president said in a speech to Congress back in March.
“Yes!” Dunleavy said in response, in a video his office posted to social media.
The video shows the governor watching Trump on a smartphone, offering color commentary and raising his fist in agreement. There’s some cheery acoustic guitar music in the background, a take on The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun.”
There is plenty to be excited about.
The state agency shepherding the gasline project has signed an agreement handing it off to a private developer for some final engineering design work. They’re hoping to get to an investment decision around the end of the year.
Dunleavy, after a trip to Asia earlier this year, came home with a nonbinding letter saying a Taiwanese state energy company is interested in buying gas from the project.
And, of course, the president has said it’s a priority — so much so that his administration is planning an Alaska summit with Asian leaders — potential gas-buyers — in early June.
So a lot of folks are saying things like this, from House Minority Leader Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, at a House Resources Committee meeting on April 30.
“After years of uncertainty, planning and perseverance, the AK LNG project is no longer just a vision,” she said. “It's closer than ever to becoming a reality, thanks to significant progress in permitting, global interest and most importantly, renewed momentum from the federal government.”
‘I don’t think it’s extremely likely’
The project, though, faces a lot of the same barriers it’s always faced. It’s hard to build a pipeline from the Arctic, never mind an 800-mile one. You have to have enough customers for the gas lined up for anyone to throw down the billions and billions of dollars it’ll take to get it built. The cost was last estimated at $43.8 billion in 2023, according to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the agency behind the project.
So Rep. Zack Fields, D- Anchorage, doesn’t want Alaskans to get ahead of themselves. There is one potential buyer who’s put pen to paper. Others haven’t signed on quite yet.
“I just don't want people to be misled that this is about to happen,” Fields said. “I don't think it's extremely likely.”
The project faces opposition from conservation groups, who say extracting more fossil fuels would worsen climate change. But, like a lot of folks in this oil-and-gas-friendly state, Fields said it would be great if the pipeline is eventually built. It could provide some state revenue — though exactly how much isn’t clear — and perhaps lower energy prices for a significant fraction of the state’s residents.
For now, though, Fields said he’s not counting his methane molecules before they come south.
“I think it would be awesome if one of those buyers materializes and buys the gas,” he said. “But that hasn't happened yet, and until it does, we're not really in any different situation than we have been for the last 50 years.”
‘It remains to be seen’
Though there’s still a long road ahead for the pipeline — even in a best-case scenario, gas wouldn’t start flowing until the early 2030s — one has to admit, it’s been a heck of a turnaround.
It was just a year ago that the future of the pipeline project was on the ropes. Lawmakers were frustrated at the gasline agency’s slow progress. They floated cutting its funding and mothballing the project.
One of those frustrated lawmakers was Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, a co-chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. These days, however, he’s more optimistic.
“It was, in my opinion, highly unlikely we'd get a gasline until the Trump administration came in,” he said.
That’s due in part to Trump’s hardball strategy on tariffs and international trade, Stedman said. Japan — one of the places Alaska’s LNG could go — has discussed increasing natural gas imports as a way to shink the country’s trade deficit with the U.S.
But whether that strategy will work, Stedman said, is uncertain.
“It remains to be seen if jawboning Japan and Korea will work to get them to write a check,” he said.
If it doesn’t work, though, Stedman has another idea for how the federal government could help get the pipeline built.
“A big equity infusion,” he said. “You put in $20 billion or $30 billion, or some significant number, to get in and get it built and de-risk it. And then, just sell it once it's up and built and running and profitable.”
The investment, Stedman said, could even make the taxpayer some money.
