Texas investor with Trump family ties pursues project to tap North Slope gas

A Texas investor with ties to the Trump family is pursuing a project to unlock natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope using Russian technology.

Gentry Beach, 50, said in an interview Friday that a company he owns, America First LNG, aims to install facilities on the North Slope, where gas can be super-chilled into a liquid.

From there, the liquefied natural gas, or LNG, would be shipped to Asian entities using tankers, including specialized ice-breaking tankers, he said. Gas could also possibly be delivered to Southcentral Alaska, he said.

“I think you’ll see huge, huge revenue opportunities in Alaska from this, and I think you’ll see lots and lots of jobs,” he said.

Beach said he is friends with Donald Trump Jr. from college. He served as finance vice chairman for Trump’s 2017 inauguration, the New York Times reported.

Beach, who owns investment firm America First Global, plans to use technology from Novatek, the second-largest gas producer in Russia, for the project, he said.

Beach said that the North Slope is home to large amounts of natural gas. The project, called Polar Eagle, will not compete with the ongoing Alaska LNG megaproject, he said.

The proposal does, however, raise questions about whether it could be a cheaper alternative to Alaska LNG, which is owned by the state and Glenfarne, a private developer.

Alaska LNG has long been estimated to cost $44 billion. Beach said his project could ultimately cost $20 billion.

Importantly, Polar Eagle would eliminate the need for the 800-mile pipeline proposed by Alaska LNG to deliver gas to Southcentral Alaska, where the gas would be liquefied.

But Alaska oil and gas industry experts say they believe Beach’s project is unlikely to become reality and faces numerous hurdles.

Those include permitting requirements in a region that’s home to subsistence whalers, sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and unexpected costs from operating in thick sea ice.

Brad Keithley, a longtime industry observer and former oil and gas attorney, said major oil companies have long dismissed the idea of shipping natural gas directly off the North Slope, due to costs.

The seafloor is shallow, so it would not be easy to deliver the gas to oceangoing tankers that need deep water, he said.

“The economics was always a big issue, and the companies never even got to the permitting,” he said.

Larry Persily, an oil and gas analyst and former federal Alaska gas line coordinator under President Barack Obama, said he doesn’t believe the Polar Eagle project will ever be built.

Beach seems to be another businessman trying to cash in on Trump family connections, Persily said.

“Who is this guy and where does he come from?” Persily said. “And why does he need Russian technology?”

Beach said, “I love people telling me I can’t do something.”

Novatek’s role

Beach said he has social relationships with the Trump family, but does not do business with them.

The Trump administration wants to see Alaska’s North Slope gas produced, Beach said.

“We have an administration in D.C. that obviously wants it, cares a lot about Alaska, and I think that they are very positive towards getting something like this done,” he said.

“Look, I want to focus on these opportunities for the next 30 years,” Beach said of Polar Eagle. “This is not a short-term thing for us. We have a long history of executing on projects, and we’re going to do that here.”

Beach said the Polar Eagle project is licensed to use technology developed by Novatek.

“It will be a U.S.-controlled facility on U.S. soils” using that technology, he said.

Beach said his company is putting together a plan.

“We’ve hired a management team to develop what is essentially stranded gas in Prudhoe Bay and related areas and our goal is to do it in the most environmentally friendly possible way,” he said.

Novatek in recent years has pioneered two LNG projects in the Siberian Arctic, known as Yamal LNG and Arctic 2 LNG.

“We are indeed having negotiations on the potential use of our unique (gravity-based structure) LNG production technology for the development of gas reserves in Alaska’s Arctic zone,“ the company said in a statement last week.

“The solution has already proven its efficiency in similar climatic conditions of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area,” the company said.

Novatek has no plans to develop fields or produce natural gas in the U.S., the company said.

The “discussion is focused on supplying our technology for American companies’ projects to monetize gas reserves from Alaska’s North Slope fields,” Novatek said.

“Should the technology be deployed under projects in the United States, the respective equipment will be ordered from U.S. manufacturers,” the company said.

“The benefits offered by the solution include new jobs and additional budget revenues for Alaska, speed of development, minimal environmental footprint, as well as operational safety and reliability,” Novatek said.

“Having said that, all the arrangements can only be implemented subject to support from the U.S. and Russian authorities,” the company said.

Novatek uses a platform, 330 feet by about 150 feet, that supports a liquefaction plant built from modules, the company said.

Tanks in the hull store the LNG.

“The entire LNG production and storage cycle is thus densely packaged” onto the platform, Novatek said.

The LNG processing unit is “towed at sea to the installation site where it gets hooked up to a natural gas pipeline and starts producing LNG,” Novatek said.

The gravity-based structure, as it’s called, is secured to the seafloor by its weight.

The liquefied natural gas is loaded onto tankers for shipment, the company said.

The project can be fast-tracked because Novatek has already partially built one of the units, Beach said.

“Literally, as fast as that facility is ready, we could strike a deal,” he said.

Novatek faces some U.S. sanctions.

But those would not affect the plan, Beach said.

Persily said he believes U.S. sanctions on Russia will be a major hurdle, discouraging other companies or investors from participating, he said.

“He’ll have a hard time selling it,” Persily said of the project.

‘Alaska needs all of these solutions’

Beach said potential investors and gas buyers are very interested in the project, and he’s had some early conversations with Alaska leaders. He declined to provide names.

“We have a lot of companies that are reaching out to us because they know our project is very economic,” he said.

The interest is “overwhelming,” he said.

He said an initial liquefaction unit on the North Slope could produce LNG as early as 2029, at about 7.5 million tons annually.

That’s about one-third of the Alaska LNG project.

He said additional units could be added, expanding the LNG production.

His company is doing preliminary front-end engineering design, and will pursue regulatory permits “in the not-too-distant future,” he said.

The facility would be built near the shore or onshore, such as on an island, he said.

“It’s just not gonna be something that impacts whaling,” he asserted.

Beach also asserted that Polar Eagle will not compete with the Alaska LNG megaproject.

“We think Alaska needs all of these solutions,” Beach said.

Tim Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson with Glenfarne, declined to comment on the Polar Eagle project.

In 2018, Keith Meyer, former head of the Alaska LNG megaproject, rejected the idea of shipping gas directly off the North Slope

Meyer said that the savings from eliminating the pipeline, estimated at $11 billion today, would vanish with acquisitions of icebreakers, specialized Arctic facilities and high operational costs that include shipping supplies and crews to the remote region.

The idea is “not economically practical,” Meyer said at the time.

Another gravity-based project

Beach said Polar Eagle also will not compete with another private project, led by former Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell.

Treadwell’s $5 billion project, called Qilak LNG, also proposes using a gravity-based platform. Treadwell said his project can overcome technical challenges of operating off the North Slope.

Advancements in LNG technology, and thinning sea ice, are a couple of factors that make the idea possible today, he said.

Like the Polar Eagle project, Qilak also would eliminate the need for the costly 800-mile gas line required by Alaska LNG.

Qilak would require a 6- to 9-mile pipeline off the shore, to deliver liquefied gas to LNG tankers in deeper water.

“That also puts you further up outside the traditional whale migration routes,” Treadwell said.

Gas production for Qilak is proposed to start in 2032, Treadwell said.

Qilak would tap gas from Point Thomson, a North Slope field, and produce at least 4 million tons of gas annually, one-fifth the size of Alaska LNG.

Treadwell said he doesn’t know Beach.

But he has heard of his project.

Treadwell said he’s aware that Novatek has had an interest in bringing equipment to Alaska that was originally being built for an expansion at Yamal.

Treadwell said he thinks Beach is on to something worthwhile in pursuing that technology. But so are other investors around the world.

“He’s not barking up the wrong tree,” Treadwell said.