The Trump Administration has invited officials from allied nations in North Asia to Alaska to assess potential investment in an LNG project and a proposed 1,300km gas pipeline.
Officials from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan may visit Alaska’s North Slope to see the location of the vast pipeline, two people familiar with the planning told Reuters.
Governments in these countries are considering investments in the US in the hope of getting relief from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
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Trump’s energy czar, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will host the June 2 event, the sources told Reuters, requesting anonymity as the details are not public.
The event will include a visit to Alaska’s remote North Slope, one source said, home to stranded gas fields the US is seeking to unlock through the proposed $44 billion pipeline. It would traverse 800 miles (1,300 km) across the huge state before the gas is liquefied for shipment, mainly to Asian customers.
Trump has pushed allies like Japan and South Korea to buy US energy while threatening trade tariffs. He has said Tokyo and Seoul want to invest “trillions of dollars each” in the pipeline project.
But it is unlikely the Alaska meeting will yield major deals related to the long-delayed pipeline project, as originally hoped, and the size and seniority of the foreign contingent is unclear, the sources said.
Cost, logistical challenges
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed optimism about the Alaska LNG project during a private meeting with Trump in February, despite doubts in Tokyo about its viability.
Japanese and South Korean officials and executives have sounded caution on a project in the works for decades that has made little progress because of cost and logistical challenges.
The White House declined to answer specific questions about the event, saying in a statement that Trump “has a proven history of bolstering American energy production and will restore our nation’s position as a global energy leader”.
The Energy and Interior departments did not respond to requests for comment.
Officials from Taiwan’s state-run energy company CPC, which in March signed a non-binding agreement to invest in and purchase offtake from the pipeline project, will attend the Alaska meetings, the Economic Ministry said. CPC did not respond to requests for comment.
South Korean Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun said last week his government had been invited but that the timing was “very tricky”. South Korea holds a presidential election on June 3.
Japan’s trade minister, Yoji Muto, has also been invited, two sources said. A Japanese government source said it would be difficult for Muto to attend due to parliamentary commitments, while Tokyo’s level of participation may be influenced by the progress of Japan-US trade negotiations.
An official at Japan’s trade ministry said on Friday that no decision had been made on Japanese participation.
Locking in binding agreements on the pipeline project may take time as developers have not yet conducted a front-end engineering design study, needed to clarify overall project costs, one source said. The study is expected to begin later this year.
The June 2 meeting will also broadly discuss collaborating on energy projects in the Arctic, the sources said. Burgum and Wright are then scheduled to participate in the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage from June 3 to 5.
Thailand also interested
Meanwhile, Thailand is also considering importing millions of tonnes of LNG annually from the Alaskan project in a bid to reduce its trade deficit with the US and avoid a high tariff rate with the Trump Administration, according to a report by The Nation early this month.
The Ministry of Energy requested that state oil and power corporations – PTT Plc and Electricity Generating Plc (EGCO) – begin talks with US officials on the natural gas project “that could see Thailand importing up to 5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Alaska annually,” the report said, adding that “the move is intended, in part, to help balance the trade surplus.”
Prasert Sinsukprasert, Permanent Secretary for Thailand’s Ministry of Energy, flew to Alaska recently for discussions with local authorities and companies involved in the LNG project, “focusing on both potential joint development and LNG import opportunities,” it said.
Reuters with additional input and editing by Jim Pollard
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