The State of Alaska saw a bumper year for exports in 2014. Patricia Eckert, Associate Director for International Trade, said 10% of the state’s Gross State Product comes from exports.
Eckert: “Alaska’s exports are generally about half seafood about a third mineral ore values, right around 10% will be energy and then we’ll also export forest products and then a host of other things. Fish meal, this year we sold a jack-up rig platform to South Africa, which is one of our first significant exports to that area, machinery, electrical machinery, survey equipment, all the things you use in resource development.”
Eckert: “This is a significant year when we look at 2014, because exports of LNG to Japan restarted.”
That LNG was shipped from ConocoPhillip’s North Kenai plant.
Compared to 2013, there was a 13.8% increase overall, the second-highest year on record.
Eckert: “It was a year when the things that we had to sell were things people needed around the world. Seafood, mineral ores, those are the building blocks of many things in the world, energy.”
Last year Alaska’s exports were worth over $5 billion.