It has been seven years since Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and entities owned by the communist Chinese government signed a preliminary agreement granting extraordinary control over the planned Alaska LNG project to Chinese firms, including Sinopec, the Bank of China, and the China Investment Corporation, all owned by the communist government.
Under the agreement, Sinopec, a state-owned oil and gas company, would serve as the primary buyer, committing to purchase up to 75% of Alaska’s natural gas from the AKLNG project. The company would also be responsible for the engineering and construction of the gasline.
The Bank of China, also government-owned, would act as the primary lender, putting Alaska in financial dependency on China.
Additionally, the China Investment Corporation would take an equity stake in the project, giving China a direct ownership interest in Alaska’s natural gas infrastructure. This was all part of China’s international effort to buy up and control infrastructure. It is called the “Belt and Road Initiative.”
A widely circulated photo of Gov. Walker shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping highlights the relationship Walker cultivated with China. This courtship began in April 2017, when President Xi made a stopover in Anchorage. Walker and then-AGDC head Keith Meyer later traveled to China to further negotiate details.
After Mike Dunleavy was elected governor in 2018 — his victory due in part to public opposition to Walker’s deals with China — he promptly canceled the agreement.
On July 19, 2019, Joe Dubler, interim president of the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation after Keith Meyer’s departure, testified before the Alaska House Resources Committee that the joint development agreement had effectively collapsed. The Dunleavy administration had informed the Chinese via teleconference that Alaska would instead pursue partnerships with North Slope producers and other potential buyers.
Then, in 2022, Sinopec was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
Six years into his administration, Dunleavy embarked on a trade mission to Asia to secure non-communist buyers for Alaska’s gas, notably avoiding China. He returned with at least one letter of intent from Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, expressing Taiwan’s interest in purchasing six million tons of LNG per year from Alaska and even investing in the project.
While the agreement with Taiwan is still non-binding, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation has meanwhile secured a primary private-sector developer, Glenfarne Group, to lead the project. Similar to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which is privately owned by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, the gasline project is moving toward a private-sector ownership model, as it was before Walker took office in 2014 and started giving Alaska’s infrastructure to the communists.
When Gov. Walker made his deal with China, he had just one year left in his only term.
Now, Gov. Dunleavy has less than two years to finalize agreements with key stakeholders, including builders, buyers, and financiers, to ensure the gasline delivers energy to Alaska’s Railbelt region and international buyers in Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, and beyond. He is spending a good deal of his time on this project to finalize it before he leaves office.
The project reached a new milestone on March 27, when AGDC signed binding, definitive agreements with Glenfarne Group, which will assume a 75% ownership stake, with AGDC retaining 25%. Glenfarne is expected to make its final investment decision in the fourth quarter of 2025 after securing additional investors.
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority approved a $50 million line of credit in December for front-end engineering and design work, which Glenfarne estimates will cost around $150 million. Additionally, federal loan guarantees of $30 billion may enhance the project’s financial viability.
President Donald Trump has voiced strong support for the project, issuing an executive order on January 20, the day he was sworn into office, prioritizing the Alaska LNG initiative.
Bill Walker would have sold his soul for that pipeline.
Still, it’s not like it exists now. So hold off on the quasi praise of our current empty suit governor.
Gov. Walker was – and no doubt remains – a ‘tool.’ I use this term because is improper to call someone the f-word – the one that ends with ‘ool.’
For decades the communist government officials of China have played the U.S. political, financial, educational, and industrial elites for fools – willing fools, shamelessly greedy for their share of the filthy riches that is wrung from the sweat of China’s slave laborers and from the despoiled natural environment of that country. Just as Abraham Lincoln had surmised in his 2nd Inaugural Address, the U.S. may again be required to pay in full for its foolishness and greed.
Never take Dunleavy’s word for anything good. Head your cursor to the government regulation site called FERC and work with them to voice your opinion. Follow that path and not idiot comparisons.
Eagle River and Chugiak Voters voted overwhelmingly 70% to Repeal RCV and Elect President Trump, yet we have Sen. Merrick representing the voters?
Vote Better Eagle River / Chugiak you voted for a Communist Democrat posing as a Republican
Dunleavy doesn’t bow to the Chinese. It would cause spinal issues for Big Mike. Walker, who bows to his Chinese lords, doesn’t have a spine in which to hurt.
.
The Chinese don’t bow. That’s the Japanese.
Maybe Walker was so crooked, it only looked like he was bowing???
Walker and the dems kowtow to the CCP
Walker was so hell-bent on building the pipeline that he was more than willing to deal with the devil.
Walker and Murkowski were and are brother and sister RINOs.
Dumbbell Dunleavy must be their first cousin.
Governor Dunleavy’s gasline likely has prospect about the same as his move to create a new Department of Agriculture or his pledge to reduce state government spending.
The United States deals with China daily. Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon, and Walmart sell tens of million of Chinese made products daily to US customers. This is a mostly free market with willing buyers and willing sellers. The problem is the US trade deficit with China is about $295 billion per year.
To end the trade deficit with China we need to shut off ALL commerce with China. Or, we could try selling China stuff made or produced in the United States. Selling China gas would reduce the trade deficit.
Getting China on clean burning gas over dirty coal would help our air quality. Some of the massive air pollution China produces every single day ends up in the Arctic, due to high level winds pushing the pollution here. That pollution then ends up in our fish, as one example. Long lived fish, especially predator fish can have high levels of mercury, with the mercury being a byproduct of combusting coal. China burns a lot of coal.
In the end the gas line is not economic. We need to sell LNG off the North Slope using ice breaking tankers like the Russians have been doing for over ten years out of Yamal. The revenue Alaska would get from the sale of our gas is greatly reduced by unnecessary tariffs- such as we’d be stuck with from an expensive gasline.
As long as this project is so poorly designed and ignores the real technological innovations in place for getting LNG to market it will not advance to actual construction.
There won’t be a Taiwan soon, thanks to Trump
Correct, Geezer. It will soon become the 52nd state, thanks to the B-21 and F-47. By the end of Trump’s third term there should be about a dozen new states. Bigger flag, please.
Did Gov Walker make and agreement with the CCP and Xi Xingping to hand over control using the Native Mafia groups of the gold mining operations and yield of IPOP? Worth an investigation. Same people and objectives.
On initial review, this is a bit petty.
.
While I do not think we should be supporting communist china, the best person to do business with is… the person willing to pay your asking prices for the goods or services you want to sell. If China was willing to pay a good price, sign a contract with them.
Hope there are clauses in that agreement that address potential scenarios like, oh, China taking Taiwan for itself, as well as loophole closures that can survive an incoming leftist governor. :o/