Alaska’s Role in Global Energy Security with Governor Mike Dunleavy

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Governor Mike Dunleavy of Alaska will join Japan Chair Ken Weinstein for a fireside chat at Hudson Institute. They will explore the evolving landscape of American energy security and examine Alaskan energy’s importance to strengthening the United States’ relationships with key allies, promoting economic development at home and abroad, and reinforcing national security.

In-person attendance is by invitation only. The event will also air live on this page.

Episode Transcript

This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.

Ken Weinstein:

Well, good morning and welcome to Hudson Institute. I’m Ken Weinstein, Japan Chair here at Hudson Institute, especially delighted to welcome the 12th governor of the great state of Alaska, Mike Dunleavy, to be with us today to discuss Alaska’s role in global energy security. The Governor has recently returned from a major trip to the Indo-Pacific, and we’ll be hearing about it from him momentarily.

As for a bit of background on the Governor, he is originally from Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. But arrived in Alaska in 1983 with big dreams. First working in a logging camp in southeast Alaska. He went on to have a career in education, spending two decades in northwest Arctic communities, working as a teacher, a principal, and a superintendent. 1987 got married to an Inupiaq woman from Noorvik and the Governor and his wife Rose Dunleavy, have three daughters whom they raised both in rural Alaska and in more urban Alaska. He served on the school board in the Mat-Su Borough two years as board president before being elected to the state senate where he served for five years from 2013 to 2018. And he was first elected governor in 2018 and reelected in 2022, making him the first Republican governor of Alaska to be reelected since 1978. He has been a very strong voice on economic development and we are honored and delighted to welcome him to the podium here at Hudson Institute. Governor Dunleavy.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Thanks, Ken.

Well, thank you. It’s great to be here and back in Washington. Lots going on, as we know, ever since the election. And great news for Alaska, the election was great news for Alaska, as you know, we’re a resource state. I know many of you study politics and geopolitics worldwide, but just to give you a perspective on Alaska, obviously we’re the largest state in the United States, two and a half times the size of Texas. We were brought in 1867 from the Russians, purchased for $7.2 million. That was the deal not of the century, but the deal of the millennium.

Our position in the world is very unique compared to our other states. We are the northernmost state, as we say. We are the westernmost state, further west than Hawaii. I was talking to Ken gave him an example of Alaska’s 1,000 miles closer to Australia than California is. It’s kind of a mind bender unless you’re looking at a map. And we’re the easternmost state, part of the Aleutians go across the international dateline, and there is actually a small community on Little Diomede Island called, well, it’s a Little Diomede. It’s a little in Inupiaq, Eskimo community, and they can see Big Diomede, which is two and a half miles away, that’s Russian territory. So in essence, if it’s Monday in Little Diomede they’re looking at Tuesday real time.

Very close neighbors, the Russians are very close to us. Chinese, their warships are now plying the Arctic, going up to the Bering Sea and going into the Arctic. We’re under the North Korean missile umbrella. We have interceptor bases in Alaska. We have a number of major Air Force bases and Army bases in Alaska. For obvious reasons, Alaska was the only territory in North America that was invaded during World War II by the Japanese and Kiska and Attu. We have a joint commander with the Canadians and the Americans since World War II.

And so Alaska geopolitically is on the front. We are the fort for North America, the real fort, looking at the Arctic, the Western Pacific and the Northern Pacific. We’re also, as I mentioned, a resource storehouse like no other 49 of the 50 rare earths in Alaska. Incredible critical minerals. Largest graphite find in North America in Alaska, gold, lead, zinc. My three daughters who are Inupiaq Eskimo girls, my wife is an Inupiaq Eskimo lady from the Kobuk River valley, they all work at Red Dog Mine as an engineer, logistics officer, and a buyer.

But the big news, obviously lately is our LNG project. As you know, Alaska is an oil giant. We’ve produced about 18 billion barrels of oil since 1977 through the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, and we have estimated another 18 billion barrels we can produce and send through that line, which will make this line almost 100 years old when that occurs in the next several decades. We’ve done a great job with oil. We do a great job with minerals. And now we have copious amounts of gas that we’ve recycled for decades and decades out of Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk, this is on the North Slope, back into the ground. We don’t flare our gas. But we know exactly how much gas we have and we know what the content of the gas is.

The trick has always been how do you monetize a project where you have to have an 800-mile pipeline coming from the North Slope to tidewater down by Anchorage? That’s been the difficult lift. So recently, what’s happened with that project is a number of huge benchmarks. It was only at 2020 that we were able to get our permits, all of our federal permits, and that’s important. That’s been the biggest hangup for a lot of projects in the United States is permitting. We have all the permits. As a matter of fact, both the Biden administration and the Trump administration, Trump one and Trump two and Biden in between, support this gas line. One of the few projects that was supported by both administrations.

Things have changed rapidly, as we know, it’s going to be hard to predict the future. As I say to people, there was pre-COVID systems were in place, globalization was in place, supply chains were in place, alliances were in place, and now post-COVID it’s a whole different world as a result of just massive changes that are happening. And so world as we see it’s real time it’s working itself out. We’re trying to figure out what is it going to be like here in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Energy is going to be a keystone for that. It’s going to be absolutely the most important thing in my opinion. Who controls energy is going to control I think the world.

And Alaska is poised to help our Asian allies in the Pacific and do our part to help with the trade deficit. But again, helping with our friends in the Pacific is important. I think we’re going to be talking about that trip here in just a moment. But we did take a trip several weeks ago, we went to Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, and Japan in an effort to gauge their desire for Alaska gas, willingness to even invest in the project, but really taking a hard look at off-takes.

First trip was to Taiwan, and we came out of Taiwan with an agreement, an understanding I should say, we’re working through the actual hard agreements now, but an understanding to off-take 6 million tons of gas. That 6 million tons from our understanding would be the largest single off-take in LNG history. And I forgot to mention that Alaska was actually the place on the planet that pioneered LNG export in the world in 1969. In ‘64, there was a plant in Algeria that would send gas out of the country, but Alaska was the first to do it on a permanent regular basis for almost 50 years. We sent gas to Japan out of Nikiski, and so we know how to do gas, we know how to do large projects such as the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. And although this project for some time has been viewed as too large, what we’ve done recently is we’ve broken this project into three components.

There’s the pipe, 800 mile pipe, that would be phase one with no compression, that would bring gas to South Central Alaska and to our military bases. Phase two would be the liquefaction export facility down in Nikiski, same place as the original facility that transported gas to Japan. And that facility would be phase two as we gear up to send gas out. The projected date for that is 2030, 2031. In-state gas with the pipe, we’re projecting if we can get our feed and our FID done here pretty quick, which we think we will, and I think we’re going to talk about that, we could see gas flowing through that pipe in two years.

So exciting times for Alaska. I think exciting times for the Pacific, exciting times for America. And like you, I think there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wake up and go to the newsfeed and see what announcements have been made by the White House or what’s happening across the world. And so it’s exciting times. And again, I think what we’re doing right now is actually figuring out and designing the future and energy is the absolute key. So that I want to thank you.

Good thing we have a podium so you can see me.

Ken Weinstein:

Exactly. I need a riser so I can... Good. Well, look, Governor, I want to thank you for those insightful remarks, and obviously it’s been a busy few weeks for you. You’re here now in Washington for the SelectUSA Conference. How are your priorities this year different than in the past?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Well, I don’t know if they’re different. I think there’s just more of an emphasis and a highlight. So we talk about gas, which is huge. We talk about critical minerals, which is huge. What you rarely hear is that our international airport is the second-busiest cargo airport in the United States, it goes between third and fourth, but third busiest in the world in terms of cargo because of where we’re located on the globe. And that has seen significant investment here recently as well. So we’re going to talk about that at SelectUSA.

We also have a Pacific spaceport. We launch rockets and satellites into space from Kodiak Island. And in 1965, University of Alaska was the first university in the world to launch rockets up in Poker Flats. So between our critical minerals, our oil, our gas, and we’re having an oil renaissance on the North Slope. Currently we’re about 495,000 barrels flow through the Trans-Alaska pipeline. In 1990 it was 2 million. So it’s three quarter empty. But with recent finds on the North Slope, we figure by 2030, ‘31, that 495,000 barrels will increase to about 7, 750,000 barrels. So a number of great things happening, and we just want to inform investors in great detail what the opportunities are in Alaska, and especially under this administration, we see tremendous opportunity.

Ken Weinstein:

You talk about the administration, you’ve met recently with President Trump. What can you tell us about your conversation with him and why is he so taken by the LNG pipeline? Really, I mean, he tweeted out about it during the transition. When I meet with officials from overseas I say this is his top construction priority in the United States, I don’t know if that’s true or not. But my sense is that this is something that really means something to him.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

We believe it’s his top, and we’re promoting it that way. We believe it’s his top. He’s very excited about the concept. And I think part of it is, in the political world you could put a lot of time and effort into doing things and sometimes even the small things take a lot of time and effort, but sometimes your efforts are better spent on massive, large projects. And given where we are in this energy transition concept that we’ve talked about, we believe it’s energy additionality is what we’ve called it in Alaska... We’re actually going to have a conference here on June 3rd, 4th and 5th, in which there’s going to be a whole host of folks from all over the world coming up there to understand energy. And I think for the President, he sees a real opportunity for Alaska.

One thing that you don’t read about in the news you don’t see, you don’t hear much about is that in many respects the President does care about the little guy. I’ll give you an example. We had an issue with a small village in rural Alaska called King Cove, and they wanted to build a road through a wildlife refuge to a larger airport, a 10,000 foot airport that was put together during World War II at Cold Bay. And the reason for that is the weather’s really bad at King Cove, and a lot of people have perished in plane crashes trying to get out for medical reasons. So when the President heard about this in his first term, he made it a priority, amongst all the things in the universe he made it a priority to try and help those people. So whenever he sees me or our federal delegation, he’ll say, where are we at with the King Cove Road? I think very shortly you’re going to see some announcements on the King Cove Road.

But the point I’m trying to make is he cares about specific things, it could be as small as King Cove Road, but larger projects that are game changers that will leave an impact on the world for the next 50 years is what I think the President is trying to do. I think you’re going to see a number of things. I don’t have insider information on this, but I think you’ll see things on the foreign front in terms of ending wars and potential peace deals. I think trade deals are going to be significant. I think the President is working with leaders throughout the world to realign the world, but using massive projects, massive deals, massive agreements to do that.

Ken Weinstein:

Let me ask you, the King Cove Road, before we get on, how long is it? Just wondering what happened.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

It’s a fight over a 13-mile road.

Ken Weinstein:

13 mile road.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

And I’ll just briefly say that’s been the problem with Alaska for a long time is we were the only state that was compelled to collectivize all of our resources under the sovereign, no other state was compelled to do that because our state was too big at the time with 250,000 people the thought was to pay for it through an income tax or a statewide sales tax. So the sovereign develops all the resources, we lease it out to leaseholders to do that. But in order to do that, 60% of the state landmass is federally owned and controlled. But there was also an understanding that all of that land, with the exception of national parks and a few other selected areas, would be open for development such as ANWR. Well, the issues have always been that the bureaucracies, especially in the part-

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

... have always been that the bureaucracies, especially in the Department of Interior Parks, et cetera, really didn’t want Alaska to be developed. The bureaucratic setup didn’t want it to be developed, so with the President now, things are moving very quickly, very fast, and we could be happier.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. It’s pretty amazing that the 13-mile road-

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

I know. I know.

Ken Weinstein:

... that he has his attention focused on. Let’s go back to the pipeline. What’s the current state of play? Does there need to be another feasibility study? What’s going on with the financing? Because I think there’s a lot of confusion as to where things are.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Great question, so here’s how I’d look at it. Prior to 2020, the project was a massive, massive project, 45 to $50 billion, three components, a conditioning plan on the slope, a pipeline, a liquefaction export plan. We have broken that project into three phases. First phase is the pipeline, 800 miles, and the idea there is that we need gas in south central Alaska to supply our bases. Alaska has very modern bases, Air Force, Army, we have missile defense in Alaska. We also have the largest Coast Guard presence in Kodiak off the coast. But nonetheless, we need the gas to make sure that we have operational integrity assured with our bases, that’s one. Our utilities in south central and central Alaska also need gas. Wood Mackenzie did a report that came out in 2024, November of ‘24 that stated that Alaska could build the pipeline and meet the debt requirement, the payments just through in-state use.

As that is happening, as we go through that process, where we would then go on the stage two, which is the liquefaction export. Let me give you the timeline, so 2020 we got all our permits, and now we have all of our right-of-ways. We are in negotiations with folks from Taiwan. We just had a delegation of folks from Thailand, several go up to Alaska for several days. We’re in discussions with Korean principals as well as Japanese principals. We feel that by August, the updated feed on the pipe only will be completed. And Glenfarne, who is the lead on that, is still very optimistic that that update on feed will come in under the numbers that some have projected, but within the numbers that would make it feasible to actually start building. Then FID would take place in the fall time. And the potential for ordering pipe would take place in the spring.

And quite possibly you would have potential construction here in a year, year and a half happening in Alaska, so we would’ve gas flowing hopefully by 2028, ‘29. And then as that is happening, we’re doing updated feed on the liquefaction export plant. And once that is complete, the feel there right now is that that also will come in within the numbers, the parameters that they need to have that come in because things have rapidly advanced in terms of construction and modularization of those types of plants. The engineering was done in 2015 led by Exxon, which is fantastic engineering. Anyone that takes a look at it and goes in the data room will tell you that that engineering is just state-of-the-art. It’s just an update right now on the pipe steel, the labor, the transportation. But once that pipe is in place and gas is flowing, you de-risk the whole project. It’s no longer a theory that, will the future administration pull the permits or whatever? That’s happening under President Trump, so we’ll see gas flowing under President Trump is the goal.

Ken Weinstein:

And do you need, in terms of the... You’re talking about the state bonds to finance it?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

No, it’s private sector. It’s private sector. Private sector, if you do a little work on comparing cost of gas landed from the Gulf Coast, from UAE or Qatar from other places, even Yamal or Sakhalin Island, the preliminary numbers show Alaska is very competitive, in the $10 range.

Ken Weinstein:

Wow.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Our proximity to Asia, again, we’re only eight days to Tokyo from Alaska where if you go through the Gulf, it’s more than twice that.

Ken Weinstein:

Because at least when you read some of the foreign press, the talk is that it’s going to be much more expensive and that’s the concern.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

That’s because folks are operating off of the concept prior to 2020 in which it was viewed as one large, massive, unified project. Again, we’ve broken that up into three phases, which makes a lot of sense for investors because investors will invest in upstream, potentially in the carbon conditioning plant, which will be the last component. They’ll invest in the pipe, they can invest in the liquefaction export, so by breaking it up in that manner, you get to start building the pipeline. You feed an investment to it, and you’re able to do feed for the other two components simultaneously so that everything, if everything works out well, again, gas is exported 2030, ‘31.

Ken Weinstein:

Prior to your last trip to Hudson, and we talked closed door about the cooperation needed internationally for the pipeline. You’d mentioned particularly on the decarbonization front and even possibly on the pipeline, you want to say a little about it?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

I’ll talk a little bit about the trip and what we got. We did go to Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, and Japan on a trip. It was a long trip, but I thought it was a very productive trip. Fantastic people, great countries, never been to Taiwan before or Thailand, been to Japan before. Very interested in Alaska gas, because as contracts expire and they look at the future of these countries, they’re looking at what their portfolio mix is going to be. And if you’re a country that’s dependent on gas, obviously you want to have a number of different sources so that you’re not leveraged or in case of disruption, you’ve got other sources to draw upon. Well, Alaska, feeding into that makes perfect sense for a lot of these countries. Again, Alex what you hit on is the biggest hurdle for people to get over is this concept that the project is too big and it was for some too big. But now when you look at it in terms of piecing it out, and as we explain that to our friends in the countries we went to, they understand that.

They understand we have the permits for it, that’s not an issue. The right of way for it, that’s not an issue and that we will de-risk the pipe and the flowing of the gas first before we do the export and liquefaction, they get that, so we’ve seen a renewed interest. I believe that there are discussions happening right now as we speak with regards to some of the Asian countries, not just off-takes, but what would be their involvement in the project? Will they be the shippers of the gas? Will they build the compressors for the gas? Will they roll the steel for the pipe, et cetera? All those discussions are happening now and they’re all real possibilities, so you may end up with a project that has off-takers in Asia, but also investment in the pipe and the other two components, but also participation possibly through shipping and component building. And the last thing I would say is that the Asian countries that we spoke to are still very interested in decarbonization.

This project, from what we can see, has lowest impact on the environment in terms of carbon. We recycle all of our gas in the slope. We don’t flare it. We know exactly what the carbon content is. Other sources in Alaska, we have low... I thought that was me. We have low carbon gas but we also have the ability to sequester almost 200,000 gigatons, 200 gigatons, sorry, 200 gigatons of gas, or excuse me, carbon in Alaska. 50 gigatons of carbon in the Inlet, Cook Inlet where this pipeline’s going to end up. And the liquefaction plant will be in exactly in the same area where the gas was that we took out of Cook Inlet to send to Japan from ‘69, but also on the north slope, tremendous opportunities to sequester carbon. And that’s also an interest for some of our Asian allies when we have this discussion, so you may see investment in the gas, off-takes in the gas, and possibly even shipping carbon to Alaska and knocking carbon off in Alaska to potentially produce hydrogen and using ammonia as a carrier.

Ken Weinstein:

And shipping carbon to Alaska from?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Asia.

Ken Weinstein:

From Asia, wow. As part of the deal or separate or is it linked?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Could be either or. We’ve been in discussions with some companies that want to just simply ship carbon to Alaska, and the discussions are happening now as to what does that gas conditioning plant look like on the slope in terms of investment and in terms of carbon sequestration, so it’s happening in multiple fronts.

Ken Weinstein:

Wow. Particular with the Japanese with their deadline on going carbon-neutral, that could be of interest. Let’s go through each of the individual countries you went to. Let’s just go through them one by one. Taiwan, what was your sense of the visit there? That obviously was the most successful visit in some ways since you walked off with a signed a letter of intent, which you mentioned on the six million tons.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

I was left with the impression that Taiwan punches way above its weight, if you know what that means. 22 million people, small island country, not a lot of resources, but incredible ingenuity, incredible work ethic. They are the chip capital of the world. And I just thought incredible people. The history of Taiwan is an interesting history. It was never really part of the modern state of China. The Japanese had controlled Taiwan starting in 1895, but prior to that there were kingdoms. And the island itself for most is Portuguese. It’s a Portuguese name. The Dutch and the Portuguese were there obviously many, many years ago. But terrific people, got to meet with the President twice. Members of their legislature, members of their corporations and their companies there in Taiwan. And I’m very interested in off-taking six million tons of gas as I mentioned when I was speaking earlier, that’s the largest off-take that we can find in the history of LNG contracting. And so they’re very interested in the gas coming from Alaska. Again, the gas coming from Alaska, it’s a quicker route to Tokyo, Korea, Taiwan, much of Eastern Asia, so they’re continuing those discussions.

They may also invest in the project itself, but very good kickoff to the meeting. We then went to Thailand where we were discussing gas with Thailand as far back as 2014, ‘15, ‘16. And so their commitment was to reinvigorate the talks that we had and the agreements that we had, LOIs. And as I mentioned, they just came up to Alaska. They committed to coming to Alaska on that trip, and they just came and left last week. There were several individuals from the government and corporations up there looking at the Kiska area where the export plant will be. And also talking with our AGDC folks, which is our state gas company that’s trying to market the gas company as well as Glenfarne, which is the private entity that’s leading. And all the reports I got is, those talks went really, really well, so we’re probably going to see a accelerated discussion to get to an HOA with those folks as well. I’m not sure exactly how much they discussed in terms of off-takes, but it’s also considerable.

We went to Korea, talked with a number of companies, SK, Hanwha, POSCA, a whole host of companies in both Korea and Japan. And they’re trying to figure out their mix. I will say one of the things that has come up as a discussion topic is that the Japanese and Koreans both by Russian gas. And I think this is probably going to be a discussion point with folks over in the White House, since we do have our bases in both countries. And the concern will be, what’s the portfolio mix on Russian gas? Especially when you have Alaska gas fairly close, and Americans being an ally with the folks there. I would say all in all the meetings were very good. No hard agreements because, and understandably so on investment, those countries and the individuals there are waiting for Glenfarne to get done with its feet on the pipe. Once the feed is done on the pipe and FID is announced in the fall time and first pipe is ordered, I think you’ll see a very rapid expedited process of investment across the board.

But offtakes think once a price range is discussed and settled upon by Glenfarne and the participating countries and their businesses, I think you’ll see an offtake agreements within a price range probably announced also in the fall time.

Ken Weinstein:

And the offtake agreements, are they signed with countries or are they signed with companies? Is it mix of both?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

It’s companies, but also you have, in some of the Asian countries, you have companies that have a lot of state-owned interests as well and influence. And so it’s a combination of.

Ken Weinstein:

And Thailand is an interesting case because it is our oldest ally in the Indo-Pacific on the one hand, it is also a country though, where the Chinese have a much more significant interest in some ways in the business community than-

Ken Weinstein:

... significant interest in some ways in the business community and exert much greater pressure in some ways than they do in the other countries you visited. Let me ask about the Taiwan, let me turn back to Taiwan for a second. So, there’ve been a number of attacks on LNG facilities in Taiwan. Taiwan, as we both know, is shutting down its nuclear reactors. It only really has in case of a blockade, either between 11 to 14 days of energy. And there are also obviously these frequent Chinese naval exercises all around the Taiwan Strait. How do you attempt to address these concerns? Was that an issue in the discussions with the Taiwanese?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Obviously, they’re a lot more aware of their situation than I am. But I believe the idea is that if you buy American gas, that’s going to help with a little more security in terms of some of the issues you were just highlighting. But I think also as we speak now, there’s discussions with mainland China on tariff and trade agreements right now. And I think the whole idea is to try and come to an accommodation throughout the world, to come up with trade tariff issues. But also I think and understanding on national security, the President’s been very adamant. He doesn’t like wars, right? I mean, he’s run on this. He doesn’t want wars, he doesn’t like wars. He thinks it’s “bad for business”, which it is.

So I would say yes, there’s tension in the Pacific, there has been for some time. But I do think good trade agreements, good agreements on energy in which everybody feels that they are benefiting from those relationships, I think could tamp things down a little bit. And again, buying American gas, it’s a lot more difficult to disrupt that than let’s say other countries.

Ken Weinstein:

Sure. Let’s now turn to Japan. You talked about your visit there, and obviously we have some Japanese press here this morning. What do you see Japan contributing to the LNG project?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Well, I think a lot of the people we spoke in the other countries, they look to Japan as a leader in Asia, to be perfectly honest with you. There’s also a belief that Japan is very methodical, a little slower, wanting to make sure that whatever deals are made are deals in their interest, which is understandable. I think that’s what any partner, any negotiator is looking at. But nonetheless, again, a concern about the Japanese taking in Russian gas is a bit of a concern. And that could be dealt with, I think by working with America on American gas coming out of Alaska.

I believe that the gas that we’re talking about, and Wood Mackenzie has done reports on this as well, analysis on this as well. The gas coming from Alaska within a certain price range, we’re talking $10 roughly, beats just about any other supplier in terms of gas land in Tokyo. But then again, I’m not inside the data rooms and inside the negotiations and the contracts that are being discussed. But as the Japanese, as well as the Koreans and others go through their contract discussions, length of contracts, when contracts are coming up, et cetera, it’s our understanding that they’re interested in Alaska gas.

A number of folks we spoke with are still, and we had to kind of fix this perception that the project was one large monolithic project A, that we were going to try and convince folks in Japan in particular that they should invest in that massive project and their concern was risk. But when we told them that the approach is very different than what it was before, that we’re going to de-risk the pipe that we’re going to have gas flowing, that seemed to change the discussion. So I’m optimistic that the Japanese companies, because benefit, I think, in a larger trade agreement, not just in off-takes, but potential shipping, potential steel compression, et cetera. I think there’s a real opportunity for the number of Japanese companies across the board to benefit from this project as well as your utilities like Tokyo Gas and others, and others.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. Okay, good. Let me ask you one last question before we open it up to the audience, which is on the question of artificial intelligence, data centers, and technologies. And where you see Alaska LNG fitting into the massive energy needs we’re going to meet and we’re going to have in the next few decades.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, I know it’s huge. Again, as I mentioned at the podium, what a different world today than it was prior to COVID. Okay. AI has been talked about for some time, but it’s really taken off post-COVID. And I don’t think it could come at a better time. I know there’s a lot of people that are concerned about the negative effects, the negative potentials of AI, and they exist. I think that could be dealt with. But I think the positive, the upsides are incredible.

So Alaska is in many respects, tailor-made for data farms. Large continuous acreage, thousands of acres of continuous land that could be had, leased, potentially sold at decent rates. Unlimited fresh water. We have three times the fresh water of any other state in the country. Our cool temperatures also could bode well for energy. Our latency issues when it comes to our connectivity, is not as bad or as poor as some other places. A matter of fact, some looked at our latency issues for our internet and they’ve said it’s comparable to many places in the world.

And then just diversifying your data foreign portfolio, if that makes sense. So if you place them all in one spot, you run a risk there in cases of disruption in the future, or God forbid, some type of conflict. But the discussions now that’s also happening is if you place them in different places and you diversify those locations, it adds to the security of your data farm approach. And so we’ve had, that’s part of the discussion we’ll have here at SelectUSA with outfits that may be looking at locating data farms.

But we get the gas flowing. There are estimates that gas for 50, 60 years if not longer... It’s a fixed gas price by the way, where we are not at Henry Hub in Alaska. We can negotiate the price of the gas. But you could potentially see gas converted to electricity somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 cents a kilowatt-hour in Alaska. So you got water, land, cool temperatures. You have an international airport that is world-class. A lot of things going for Alaska.

Alaska’s off the radar screen in more ways than one, way up there in the top of the world. People aren’t thinking about it. But as I’ve said to people, I think in the next 50 years, Alaska will be a huge player in the Arctic, the Pacific, as well as in the data farm and energy sphere.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. Thank you very much. Let’s now open it up to questions. Please identify yourself and remember to ask a question, not offer for remarks. Thank you. Great. And please identify yourself. Thank you.

Carlos Anchondo:

Hi, I’m Carlos Anchondo. I’m a reporter with E&E News, and I was wondering if you could go over the timeline again. You had, I think, said maybe gas within two years, and then I think maybe later you said 2028. So, I just wanted to check there. And then I also wanted to ask, to what extent is Alaska concerned that maybe companies in Asia are signing LOIs, but then could pull out of those once tariffs and the trade war is out of the news that they could pull out of those agreements later?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, let me address the second question first. So, Alaska was the only state that did an executive order by the President of the United States. Gas was a prominent feature in that executive order. We were the only state to get a shout-out. And the gas project was in the President’s State of the Union speech. This is significant. The White House, we and others, see our gas as a solution to a lot of problems in Asia. Again, we could be part of the mix in the portfolio, et cetera. So, we would hope that whatever agreements are made or agreements that are long-lasting. I think that’s part of what the president wants to do. And it’s certainly what we want to do. And I think that some of the companies and some of the individuals we spoke with, they want that long-term security of American gas. So hopefully, that bodes well.

On the timelines, again, I still run into people that say, “Does it even have its permits?” This project has had its permits since 2020. All of its permits. And those permits have survived court cases, by the way. And all the right-of-ways have been secured for this.

And so the timelines, again, we’re in a feed process now. Glennfarne’s updating the feed on the pipe. They believe that the feed process will be done late summer, early fall. They believe quickly after that, they will enter into FID, if everything goes well. And then quickly after that, going into the winter, spring, you could see pipe order and investors hopping in on the pipeline itself. They’re already having discussions with investors. I mean, I can’t get in those discussions. I’m not part of the NDA, so I’m looking at it from the outside. But my understanding is they’re having those discussions. And so, you could see the pipe being built next summer into the fall, into the following year. And then without compression and without needing to condition certain gas in Alaska, there are certain gas plays right now that are under 3% carbon. So you could send that gas right down to our bases, down to our utilities, and use it ASAP.

Once that pipe starts to get built and you de-risk it, you’re also having concurrent conversations on the liquefaction export plant in terms of updating that feed as quickly as possible. And so, that’s going to be a little more expensive to update that feed. But again, the technology is rapidly advanced in the whole concept of modulating these types of plants that the belief is that that could also move fairly quickly. So long story short, you could see gas being exported 2030, 31. And the last component, my understanding that they would be working on is the gas conditioning plant up in Prudhoe Bay on the north slope. Because there’s a lot of gas in between that is low carbon. So it’ll be phase one’s supply, phase twos liquefaction, actually phase three will be the gas conditioning plant.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. Other questions? Yeah. Over here.

Salim Ali:

Thank you, governor. I’m Salim Ali. I’m a Professor of Energy in the Environment at the University of Delaware. And I’ve done extensive field work in the Arctic, including Alaska. My question is regarding the universities in Alaska have historically had a lot of technical capacity to help with projects like the LNG project. But they did go through a crisis phase. What is Alaska planning to do in terms of workforce development and research capacity at the universities?

And related to that, one of the areas I work on is science diplomacy. And you mentioned the proximity with Russia. And there has been historically a lot of research collaboration with Russia, particularly in the Beringian Heritage Program. Is there some potential that with some of the overtures with President Trump, that may also be resurrected?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, I hope so. I think we all hope so, right? I mean, I can think of very few places that really want conflict. But I would hope so. And again, Japanese are an incredible ally and friend of the United States. 80 years ago, we weren’t. So things change rapidly in the world, and can.

With regard to workforce in Alaska, because of the oil resurgence on the north slope, we feel we have upwards of four to 5,000 workers already on the ground doing that work with pipe, but in the oil sphere right now. Certainly we’re going to have to import some of our workers, because the estimates for this particular gas pipeline is upwards of 20,000 workers at one time, putting this together over several years. So we are working with our university, we’re working with our labor unions.

Labor’s an issue. Labor has been an issue. When I said earlier about AI, it’s an opportune time. Labor’s an issue, demographics are an issue which contribute to labor. Individuals going into universities and other types of trainings, it’s an issue. So, we’re working on some CTE funding in our legislature. We’re working with our unions and having discussions and the university, but no doubt there’s going to have to be labor imported. Alaska’s got 740,000 people. And the training and the scope of work and the type of labor you’re going to need, you’re going to have to bring some in from outside.

I’m a huge optimist in the future across the board. I’ve seen things that can happen, but with regard to relationships with China, with Russia, with others, I always think there’s incredible possibility and opportunities there. And I think if you were to ask the average Russian or Chinese individual, what do they want? I think it’s the same thing we all want.

Ken Weinstein:

Other questions? Yeah. There.

Carlos Anchondo:

Sorry to ask multiple there, but couldn’t resist, I guess. I did want to ask what you might be able to share with us about the summit that the White House and the National Energy Dominance Council is planning in June. And if you’re able to share any details and...

Carlos Anchondo:

... in June, and if you’re able to share any details. And if there’s anything, I know you all have the permits for the project, but if there’s anything else that you’d be looking for as the Army Corps issues, accelerated permitting, or things like that, are there asks that you have of the White House as it relates to Alaska LNG?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Well, a great question. We have a very good relationship with the White House, obviously, including the secretaries. We’ve worked extensively with Secretary of the Interior of Burgum, who’s a former governor and I knew him as a governor. Secretary Wright, Secretary Zeldin will play a role. But again, we have all the permits. It’d be a different deal if we were trying to work through the permits, we have all the permits, we just have to keep an eye on them, make sure they’re current, make sure there’s none that expire. Do our due diligence to see if there’s anything we’re missing, but we have and we’re not.

With regard to the Energy Conference and the Get-Together summit that was planned before then, we’re going to be getting information here hopefully in the next day or two as to the status of that and participants. So until then, I really don’t have the answer to that question. But I would say generally speaking, when this pipeline was mentioned and people said, “Oh, here we go again, we’ve heard about this.” I think the fact that it’s on the forefront of the White House, I think of the fact that it’s part of negotiations and trade and tariff, which it is. I think it’s part and parcel of reorganizing the world. What’s the world going to look like in terms of alliances? I think that’s part of it. So I would simply say it’s going to take a little bit of time to understand to what degree some of our Asian allies want to be an actual part of the investment versus the off-takes. But everything we’ve heard so far doesn’t, doesn’t diminish our optimism, and it’s been affirmation or confirmation that things are moving.

Ken Weinstein:

Ken Moriyasu with Nikkei Asia.

Ken Moriyasu:

Hi. Yeah, that’s me. You said for Japanese companies, there are opportunities for shipping companies and steel makers. But I think the natural question from the Japanese side would be, the USTR is currently considering fees, port fees for foreign ships, not just Chinese-owned ships. But if there are any Chinese-owned ships in the fleet, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars of port fees being proposed. Also for steel, there’s a section 232, 25% tariff importing steel. How do you explain to the Japanese how to get over these hurdles?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah. My understanding, that’s all part of discussions that are happening at the White House. In other words, what is today a tariff or a fee, tomorrow if there’s an agreement on a broader tariff or trade agreement, may not be. And so I think the White House is looking at all these pieces and all these parts to see how they can all fit together on deals. And that’s what the president is, I mean, he is a deal maker, that’s his background. But I would say to our Japanese friends, the discussions are happening and they’re part of it, they know what’s going on. And the opportunities are real. And yes, the United States, it’s shipping it’s steel-making capacity, et cetera. These are all discussions I think that the Japanese and the Koreans and others, but the Japanese, I think can be really at the forefront, and to be perfectly honest with you. Our trans-Alaska oil pipeline was not American steel, it was Asian steel that was built in ‘74 to ‘77. I think there’s tremendous opportunity, it depends, I think on off-takes. I think it depends on some of the other trade and tariff issues. I think if they can get worked out into a larger package, I think you’ll see some of those barriers not be barriers after all.

Salim Ali:

I have a loud of voice, we’re good.

Ken Weinstein:

Yeah. Well. For the audience at home though.

Salim Ali:

Oh, of course. Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you Governor, thank you to the Japan chair of the Hudson Institute for putting on this event. My name is Logan Carnicelli with the U.S ASEAN Business Council. We represent U.S companies working in Southeast Asia, not the least of which Thailand. And we have a very robust energy committee that consists of a lot of LNG exporters and ancillary industry developers in the LNG space. And my question’s in regards to Thailand specifically. We actually have a meeting tonight on the sidelines of SelectUSA with representatives from PTT and EGCO who were part of the delegation that went to your state in Alaska, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m curious from your side, what is the next iteration of that conversation? And what’s kind of the ask moving forward in that relationship? I’d like to hear from you on that, and then them this evening to kind of see what the synergy is. Thank you.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, off-takes we think are the key. How much gas do you want? What do your contracts look like? What are you looking at over the next 3, 4, 5, 10, 15 years? Do you want to be an aggregator to some extent with maybe countries like Vietnam? These are discussions I think that are happening as we speak, but the first step is the off-take concept. Once we update the LOI, and like I said, I actually going to see some of my gas folks here today and tomorrow, and they’ll update me. But once you move from an LOI and you get close to doing HOA, how quickly will that happen? Because that’s reality, it goes from discussion to reality.

And so I’ll get an update from my people. They just left last week, they were here last week I believe it was, and they left after several days up there. So I’ll know more. But I would say that off-takes is the key for all the countries, and that’s why Taiwan was significant. They were very adamant, they wanted off-takes and they were very adamant as to how much they’re looking at. And we just got to convert those. When I say we Glenfarne the private lead is in those discussions. And the conversion of those preliminary agreements, the hard agreements is the key, and I think they’re moving quickly to get to that point. I’ll know more though when I speak with my people today.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. Other questions? Yeah, will Chief Deputy Director Hudson, Japan Chair.

Speaker 1:

Hi, governor. It’s great to see you again.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Same.

Speaker 1:

I’m really glad that we were talking about Southeast Asia and also Thailand because we had a conference back in February on U.s-Japan cooperation in Southeast Asia. And energy was a major focus on those discussions. One of the challenges that came up in our conversation was the fact that a lot of these LNG projects that you would have to set up in Southeast Asia oftentimes exceed the sort of the seven-year window that private banks are willing to lend. That means there’s a greater reliance on things like JBIC, XM Bank, DFC, those sorts of government instruments. To what extent can we sort find a solution towards solving this problem where we can build awareness of both Alaskan LNG as well as addressing these fundamental infrastructure issues that need to be finance to make it easier for potential customers in Southeast Asia?

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, and part of this, I may be getting out of my lane, but I would say things like the import-export bank certainly could be a discussion. But my understanding is there’s a lot more private capital out there waiting to be deployed for long-term large projects. We went to the UAE this January, and had discussions with a number of government officials as well as a number of the investment banks there. Very much interested, and I think you’re going to see that with President Trump going over to the Middle East here shortly, very interested in deploying capital for projects such as this.

And so if there’s a profit to be made, if the risk is reasonable, if the projects are large and long-term, and especially if the projects are focused on energy or energy-related industries. I think from everything I’ve heard, not only the opportunity, but the hesitancy to deploy capital is not really there, for example, maybe as it was years ago for mining plays or whatever, which had some issues with being high risk in some countries. But everything I hear is, we get through feed for this project, which we will. And we go to FID on the pipe, and it’s de-risked that the capital will flow in. And the discussions on what the import facilities will be in some of these countries, I think that’s part of the ongoing discussions at the same time, how do those intake facilities get financed as well?

Your best, when I say your best, the best chance for low carbon fuel going into the future on a large scale is gas, there’s no doubt about it. And as the technology’s mature in other types of energy production, that’ll just add to the mix. But as we mentioned with AI, with electrification rapidly advancing as it is, you’re going to need all the gas you can get. And I think investors will see some real opportunities. So I think you’re going to see investors, and I think you’ll see some of the issues that we discussed dealt with during these discussions and negotiations.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. Other questions? Okay-

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

You guys have been to Alaska? Don’t shake your head no.

Ken Weinstein:

I got into trouble already this morning. So we’ve got one last question here. It’d definitely on the to-do list.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

He’s been to Alaska.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I have. Just a quick question around Pebble Mine, and what you see the future there because there you’ve got the potential for the battery metals, and that’s a project that President Trump in his first administration was more ambivalent about.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, I see great opportunity for Pebble mine. The gold and copper there is beyond world-class, it’s humongous. And as a governor, one of the things that I focus on, and I mentioned this earlier about President Trump with King Cove Road, most of our resource plays are in rural Alaska, located near indigenous communities. And the opportunity for them to gain employment, gain revenue streams for their municipalities, their schools, and so forth, is tremendous. And Pebble is no exception. A number of these resource plays have fallen victim to politics and emotion over time. There’s a fear that if Pebble Mine is built, there will be dam a failure. History doesn’t prove that out, and science, certainly the advancements in science, would prevent to the extent, I think a great extent possible for that never to happen. In Alaska we haven’t had dam tailing failings, we haven’t had that. So I would say that the potential is tremendous there, the potential to change the local communities for the better is there. The question is whether we can get science to trump emotion. And that goes for a lot of plays I think, throughout the world, especially here in the United States.

And last thing I would say to that, and I tried to make the case. If one doesn’t want resource development to happen in the U.S, whether it be mining, whether it be oil, whether it be gas, timber, it’s going to happen somewhere. And where it happens, that somewhere where it happens, can we rely on their regulations being more stringent than ours? History demonstrates that’s not necessarily the case. And so if you want to do it well, do it in Alaska. We don’t flare our gas, I think we do a great job in protecting the environment.

And I’ll say one last thing related to Pebble and just indigenous communities. The life expectancy of native people on the north Slope of Alaska, there was a research piece done on this, increased by upwards of 14 years as a result of oil development. Why? They were able to afford to pay for clinics, improved airports, better schools, better public safety, et cetera. So a direct impact like that, I think, could also occur at Pebble. And I’m a proponent of Pebble, we got to work through some things using science to dispel some of the myths. But I think we’ll see Pebble developed hopefully sooner than later.

Ken Weinstein:

Great. On that note, I just want to really thank the governor. It’s been extraordinary listening to you, you’ve got a real knowledge of both detail and also a strategic comprehension of what we need, what Alaska needs to do as a state, and what we need to do as a nation to take advantage of these opportunities to develop the extraordinary resources we have before other less reliable nations do. So I really want to thank you for visiting with us. I promise to get up to Alaska before too long and I mean it. And I really want to thank everyone, I want to thank the Hudson Institute, my colleagues on the Japan chair, colleagues on the communications team, and thank all of you for being with us here live, and those at home in the studio. And thank you so much. Governor Dunn.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Yeah, I want to thank you. I want to thank the Hudson Institute for what you do. Very valuable institution, so thanks for having me.

Ken Weinstein:

Thank you.

Governor Mike Dunleavy:

Thank you.