South Korea and other Asian countries plan visits to the state as they eye Alaska LNG project

Officials from Asian countries will soon be coming to Alaska as they consider potential involvement in the Alaska LNG project, according to news reports and state gas line officials.

The trips come as President Donald Trump has given strong support to the project while also proposing steep tariffs on those countries amid concerns of U.S. trade deficits. The project’s potential large gas supply is seen as a way to help reduce those gaps.

A U.S. Department of Energy spokesperson said in a statement Friday that Alaska LNG could cut the national trade deficit by an estimated $10 billion annually, while supporting national energy security and thousands of jobs.

Meetings with Asian entities on Alaska soil are in the works, though there’s no guarantee they will end up investing in the long-challenged project, or agreeing to buy gas from it, if it is built.

The National Energy Dominance Council, an advisory group to Trump led by the secretaries of Interior and Energy, is working to convene a June 2 summit in Alaska with officials of trade ministries from Japan and South Korea, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Spokespeople with the U.S. Interior and Energy departments did not answer questions Friday about the news report.

The three-day Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference, organized by the office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who supports the gas line, is planned to start June 3 in Anchorage. The governor’s office referred questions about the potential summit to the office of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

In early May, representatives from Thailand and South Korea will be visiting Alaska, according to Matt Kissinger, venture development manager for the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the state agency involved in the gas line project.

The delegation from Thailand will be large and will include Thailand’s Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy Prasert Sinsukprasert, Kissinger said, speaking to the Alaska Legislative Budget and Audit Committee on Wednesday.

As for South Korea, the country plans to “prudently” review the project as it considers becoming part of it, according to reports from Korean news outlets that quoted Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun. The review will include an on-site inspection in Alaska, the reports said.

Talks with potential LNG buyers from Asia have accelerated as the project began taking a phased approach to construction plans and Glenfarne, a private New York company, became the project’s lead developer, said Tim Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., in an email on Friday. The state had previously led the project on its own, after the major oil companies that were the state’s original partners backed out in 2016.

In March, Taiwan’s state-owned CPC Corp. signed a non-binding letter of intent expressing an interest in the project, the Taipei Times reported.

Still, Alaska LNG faces steep hurdles.

Costs and the project’s huge facilities have stymied efforts to build it, among other challenges.

The project envisions development of a roughly 800-mile pipeline delivering natural gas from the North Slope. The gas would be processed at a treatment plant on the North Slope and liquefied in Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula, then exported to Asian markets in oceangoing tankers.

The Alaska LNG project has been in the works for more than a decade. Asian entities have previously expressed interest in the project that later fizzled.

Over the decades, earlier projects that were also designed to tap and sell Alaska’s North Slope gas have never materialized.