Sullivan Speaks on “Really Significant Progress” for Alaska LNG Project

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan speaks on Alaska LNG project progress in this excerpt from a press release, Jan 13:

Ashlyn O’Hara, KDLL Kenai Public Radio: Pivoting slightly, but sticking with resource development: The last that I’d heard from your office regarding the Alaska LNG Project was earlier in the summer. You’d mentioned that you were kind of shopping it around the Pentagon to see if there was any interest in federal capital investment. What were the results of those conversations? Did anything come of those talks?

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan: I would say, in terms of the Alaska LNG Project, since we talked last summer, we’ve seen really significant progress. Now, I fully understand when people are going to roll their eyes and say, ‘Oh, come on, Dan. We’ve been hearing that for 50 years.’ I get the skepticism, but when you see the progress that Glenfarne has gotten in terms of letters of intent, but also what are called heads of agreement—that’s the next step in terms of a commitment to buy gas. When you look at the partnership agreements that they’ve signed with a number of different off-takers from Japan, from Korea, from Thailand, from Taiwan; and when you look at how much the President and his team have been pushing this project—you couldn’t have a starker contrast between the Biden administration that was all about shutting down resource development, particularly oil and gas in Alaska, John Kerry, the climate czar, literally going overseas to Japan and Korea, telling them not to buy Alaska LNG, to having the President and his team encouraging countries to do that. I’ve been doing that as well, with the Koreans, with the Japanese, particularly with the Taiwanese. I think we’re seeing some really important progress. Glenfarne is almost done—I’m meeting with the leadership of that company tomorrow—with their FEED (front-end engineering and design) work on the project.

But in terms of the federal government, we were able to get in the budget reconciliation bill a brand new Energy Dominance Financing Program at the Department of Energy. This is a big financing program that’s all about American government investment and loans in large-scale transformative energy infrastructure projects. Well, guess who’s number one on their list that they are negotiating with as we speak? That’s the Department of Energy negotiating with this new authority and new fund that we got into law with the Glenfarne Alaska LNG Project. DOE is definitely working it, Ashlyn. It’s a very good question. Lately, we have been pressing this idea, not only of DOD having off-take agreements to essentially help heat the bases. By the way, as Alaskans know, in Interior Alaska, it has gotten really cold. Eielson and Ft. Greeley are approaching 50 below zero temperatures. They need steady supplies of gas. But we are looking at this big move now to start having federal data centers located on military bases throughout the country. My team and I have been starting to work with DoD on that concept, too. That’s a great idea that the administration is pursuing: data centers for our military on military bases. Well, guess where would be a great place to do that? It would be in Alaska.

That discussion you and I had on the DOD side is still ongoing, but I will tell you, where we’ve made the most progress with the federal government in terms of financing our project is in the aftermath of the budget reconciliation bill and the provision that I personally negotiated to get this energy financing program up and running with the Department of Energy. This builds on the provision Sen. Murkowski and I got in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which was for loan guarantees for this project. This project has federal loan guarantees that were indexed to inflation, fortunately. It’s the only project in America that’s backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.

So, a lot of progress right now, I think it’s an exciting time, certainly for the Kenai because the LNG facility will be built there. But, as I always mentioned to the naysayers—and I get why people are naysayers—but the reason, Ashlyn, I’ve been putting my shoulder into this for years and years and years is, I always say to the people who are kind of like, ‘Oh, what a waste of time. It’s not going to happen.’ Well, what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative? Unfortunately, we’re starting to run out of Cook Inlet gas. The alternative, longer term, when you ask people, it’s, ‘Well, we’ll probably have to import gas from Mexico or Canada.’ Count me out on that one. I think we need to solve Alaska’s energy problem with Alaskan energy. Here’s the final thing. If we have long supplies for 50 to 100 years of clean burning, low-cost Alaska gas running through our state, run into the Kenai Peninsula, there’s nothing we can’t do. Our future is going to be so bright. The jobs just to build this thing are in the 15 to 20,000 worker range. But to me, it’s an exciting time, and since you and I’ve talked, the progress has been accelerated. I talked to the President of the United States about this two weeks ago in the Oval Office. His team is still really focused on it. That is another reason that we’ve seen all this progress. I’m hopeful we’ll have a final investment decision sometime in 2026, and I’m meeting with the Glenfarne guys tomorrow and the Secretary of Energy tomorrow, and trust me, I’m going to continue to press this really important project.