The US Department of Energy has given final approval after permit processes lasting more than a decade of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. LNG export project to supply Asian nations with the state’s abundant North Slope gas.
The DoE Office for Fossil Energy and Carbon Management said AGDC’s project could export natural gas to countries with which the United States does not have a free trade agreement.
Moving forward
With the export licence approval from DoE and with all the environmental permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the LNG export joint venture can now move forward.
The Alaska LNG project includes a liquefaction facility on the Kenai Peninsula in southcentral Alaska and a proposed 807-mile (1,300 kilometres) pipeline to move gas from northern Alaska across the state.
The project was first approved by the Administration of Donald Trump and the Biden Administration has now also concluded that there were large economic and international security benefits and that opponents had “failed to show the exports were not in the public interest” of the nation.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had prepared an Environmental Impact Statement that assessed the potential environmental impacts of the proposal to develop, construct, and operate facilities that would commercialize the North Slope resources.
The Biden Administration in January 2023 had also published the final Supplemental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Alaska LNG project.
The final SEIS generally confirmed the conclusions of the draft SEIS published in June 2022.
The AGDC had said that the Biden Administration had already confirmed that Alaska LNG could deliver environmental benefits globally and provide environmental and socioeconomic benefits for Alaskans as the world “turns away from Russian energy” supplies.
Strong LNG demand is expected to create a gap in supply starting in 2028, which new projects like Alaska LNG are competing to fill.
The Biden Administration in March 2023 also approved the ConocoPhillips $7 billion Willow oil and gas drilling project on the North Slope.
