The gasline company that the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation is in negotiations with to build the AK-LNG project was revealed this week to be the Glenfarne Group. The news came on Tuesday from the Alaska Landmine, a news and opinion organization that announced it on X. It has been confirmed by sources in the Governor’s Office.
At the end of a press availability on Jan. 6 with Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the AGDC President Frank Richards said the state-owned agency has entered into a framework agreement with a qualified energy producing company for Alaska LNG, a proposed gasline from the North Slope, which will include a Nikiski export facility, a pipeline, and carbon capture components. A formal agreement is expected to be announced soon. But Richards didn’t say who the company was, at the time. That news leaked out the next day.
“I don’t understand why people treat these things as so secretive. It always comes out anyway. It’s pretty loose when a deal of this nature gets broken by the Landmine,” said Jeff Landfield, publisher.
But it’s early, and it’s all a stage-gated process, where each party meets certain goals before moving forward, in order to de-risk the project for all parties at the table. The gas itself is owned by the oil companies with leases on the North Slope, and for many years has been very useful right where it is, reinjected into the drained underground oil geologic caverns to force out more oil for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
“The terms of the framework agreement are being negotiated or have been negotiated; the next step is for both parties to create a legally binding development agreement that will move the project forward,” Richards explained.
Glenfarne Group is a global company based in New York City and Houston, Texas and is a developer, owner, operator, and industrial manager of energy and infrastructure assets, like the one that Alaska has been trying to get out off of the drawing boards for decades.
Glenfarne, founded in 2011 by Australian Brendan Duval, also owns companies in South and Central America. In 2022, Glenfarne Asset Company, LLC acquired Termonorte Colombia S.A.S. (the “Plant” or “Termonorte”), a power plant located near the port of Santa Marta in Colombia.
“The acquisition reinforces Glenfarne’s commitment to providing grid stability to Colombia and the entire Latin American region,” the company said. Read more about Glenfarne at its website.
The group appears to have raised $4 billion for the $44 billion Alaska LNG project, which would bring North Slope gas to tidewater at Nikiski, where it could be exported to Asian markets. Offtakes would allow gas to be delivered to communities on the Railbelt, from Fairbanks to the Kenai Peninsula.
