Higher steel tariffs imposed on China by President Donald Trump will add up to a half a billion dollars to the proposed AK-LNG project, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski last week.
Murkowski was on a panel with Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who is Senate Majority Whip. The two spoke during CERA Week, a Houston energy conference.
Murkowski was asked if her constituents had raised a concern about the unavailability of certain kinds of steel.
“This is a big deal up north, as we’re trying again to build out so much of this that we’ve been waiting for. Again, whether it’s actual pipe itself or the infrastructure that is going into these drilling operations…A lot of discussion about Alaska’s LNG and the opportunities that we will have, looking to build an 800-mile pipeline. Where are we going to get that pipe?
“The back-of-the-envelope numbers is that with these tariffs, we might be in a situation where it’s not only hundreds of millions, it might be as much as a half a billion dollars added on to the most expensive infrastructure project that we have seen in this country. So these are real numbers. This has real impact,” Murkowski said. “This is not coming at a good time for us.”
Last week, Keith Meyer, the head of AGDC, brushed off reporters’ questions about the impact of increased tariffs, saying it would not add much to the massive project, which is estimated to cost between $43-60 billion.
Also last week, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan joined six other Senators, including John Barrasso of Wyoming, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who signed a letter to Trump in which they asked him to consider alternative measures and withdraw his tariff order.
