Freshman U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan is taking up the cause of the AK LNG Project, petitioning the Department of Energy for expedited approval of a non-Free Trade Agreement export license.
The Project requested the license in July of last year. It would allow them to send gas to non-FTA countries like Japan and South Korea.
Janak Mayer with the consulting firm Enalytica recently gave Legislators an update on the Project…
Mayer: “It’s a ambitious and really quite daunting program in terms of what needs to be negotiated and agreed over the next 12 months or so by the original schedule to get to a decision to move the Project into the FEED stage on time, based on that initial timetable.”
Sullivan wrote to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, saying “the project is a great opportunity to not only fuel our country’s own need for cleaner energy, but tap into the demand of an ever growing Asia-Pacific consumer market. Given the overwhelming economic benefits this project would bring to Alaska and the nation, it is instrumental in fully unleashing America’s vast energy potential.”
Sullivan expressed “confidence” that Moniz is placing a high prosperity on the Alaskan project and understand it differs “significantly” from similar projects in the Lower 48.
Alaska’s Senior Senator Lisa Murkowski is the Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
In the application, the Project requested authority to export 20 million metric tons of LNG per year for 30 years.
Approval was granted in November for the Project to export to Free Trade Agreement countries.