Trump’s ‘Unleash Alaska’ Order Aims To Untangle Stalled LNG Project

A part of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System runs through boreal forest past Alaska Range mountains near Delta Junction, Alaska, on May 5, 2023. The 800-mile-long pipeline carries oil from the North Slope in Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. Mario Tama/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s Alaska executive actions package not only seeks to expand fossil fuel development in the state but defines a stalled liquified natural gas (LNG) pipeline and marine terminal project—the only one now approved and permitted on the United States’ west coast—as pivotal in anchoring “an energy corridor of critical national importance.”

In his Jan. 20 ‘Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential’ order, the president calls on federal agencies to “expedite the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects,” prioritize “development of Alaska’s liquified natural gas (LNG) potential,” and expand oil and gas drilling in the 19.6 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and, potentially, also in the 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve.

The sweeping action rescinds “all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions ... promulgated, issued, or adopted between Jan. 20, 2021, and Jan. 20, 2025,” essentially erasing 70 Biden-era regulatory actions related to Alaska.

The rollbacks and prioritization aim to accelerate an unnamed project that, in nomination hearings for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, was repeatedly referred to as the “Alaska LNG project.”

That project is Alaska Gasline Development Corporation’s (AGDC) planned 807-mile pipeline that would funnel about 3.3 billion cubic feet of gas a day (Bcf/d) from Prudhoe Bay above the North Slope to Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula, about 80 miles south of Anchorage by boat on Cook Inlet, or 170 miles by road on Alaska Highway 1.

AGDC, an independent, state-owned corporation, was established in 2013 by state lawmakers who commissioned it the following year to “develop an Alaska liquefied natural gas project on the state’s behalf.”

The proposed pipeline and terminal project was initially submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2017 and received authorization to proceed in May 2020 under the Trump administration. It was reauthorized under the Biden administration in 2022.

Despite the authorizations, proponents maintain 70 Biden executive orders related to Alaska energy development have locked the LNG project in a regulatory limbo.

Trump’s ‘Unleash Alaska’ order sweeps those regulations and rules away, and elevates the project to a priority that should be accelerated under his  “National Energy Emergency” declaration.

While there is significant opposition to expanding ANWR and NPR oil/gas development, the proposed LNG project is “broadly supported at federal, state, and local levels because of this project’s significant strategic, economic and environmental benefits,” AGDC President Frank Richards said in a Jan. 20 statement.

AGDC maintains Alaska LNG exported primarily to Japan and other Pacific nations would boost U.S. exports by $10 billion a year, chipping away at the nation’s trade deficit, employ up to 10,000 during construction, and create approximately 1,000 permanent operational jobs. “Studies have also shown that each direct job creates a ripple effect in the economy that generates 20 indirect jobs,” it states.

The pipeline, which would be underground except for crossing water bodies such as Cook Inlet and active fault-lines, will have the capacity for “multiple interconnection points … for in-state gas distribution” to remote areas to fuel refining, mining, and industrial development, AGDC’s project description reads.

It would also be a boon to isolated communities without access to natural gas, including Fairbanks, which “does not currently have a pipeline supply of natural gas and has significant air quality issues from the combustion of dirtier fuel sources, particularly in the winter.”

Richards said the project not only offers “significant strategic, economic and environmental benefits” for the nation in general and Alaskans specifically, but “eliminate up to 2.3 billion tons of carbon emissions over the project’s 30-year authorization.”

An undated photo showing an oil transit pipeline running across the tundra to a flow station at the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North Slope. Al Grillo, File/AP Photo

Only West Coast LNG Terminal

Clearly, however, the Trump administration’s focus is getting the only federally permitted LNG export terminal on the U.S. West Coast “offering direct, canal-free shipping via uncontested waters to Asian markets” off the drawing board and into operation.

According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, right now there are seven oceanside terminals in the United States permitted to store and ship LNG—two each in Texas and Louisiana, and one each in Maryland, Georgia, and Nikiski.

The existing Nikiski terminal with an 0.2 Bcf/d capacity was “mothballed” in 2017. ConocoPhillips exported the relatively small amount of Cook Inlet gas to markets in Asia until 2015 but, without pipeline access to North Slope fields, the operation was not profitable.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lists seven LNG export terminals—four in Texas, three in Louisiana—that are approved and under construction. Another 12 have been approved—five in Louisiana, three in Texas, one each in Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi, and AGDC’s Nikiski terminal—but construction has not begun.

These projects—all but the Nikiski terminal are on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts—were disrupted by the Biden administration’s January 2024 “pause” that Trump lifted in his Jan. 20 “Unleashing American Energy“ executive actions package.

AGDC’s plans outline a 200-acre gas treatment plant in Prudhoe Bay that will include a carbon capture component to remove carbon dioxide from gas, “capture” it, and compress it “for re-injection into the Prudhoe Bay reservoirs.”

The Nikiski LNG plant will have the capacity to process, store, and ship up to 20 million tons of LNG a year from a two-berth marine terminal that can accommodate Q-Flex LNG carriers, which are among the world’s largest ship classes with a cargo-carrying capacity of 210,000 cubic meters, or 74,160 tons.

The project would require realignment of a 1.3-mile span of Alaska’s Kenai Spur Highway.

Alaska’s Congressional delegation let Burgum, Wright, and Environmental Protection Agency Director nominee Lee Zeldin know the “Alaska LNG project” was a top-shelf priority during their mid-January nomination hearings.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), noting Congress had “approved a loan guarantee for an Alaska gas line,” asked Wright during his Jan. 15 hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee if he would support efforts to “stand up” the project through its regulatory review.

“It should be an easy answer,” she said.

It was.

“To grow natural gas production in Alaska and build infrastructure to export that to the world, given how close it is to the biggest, fastest-growing markets in the world in Asia, I think it’s a tremendous idea,” Wright said. “Great for our country. Great for Alaska.”