Japanese electric company signs tentative agreement for gas from trans-Alaska pipeline project
- Alaska Beacon
- Sep 10
- 2 min read
By James Brooks
Alaska Beacon
Japan’s largest electric company has agreed to buy 1 million tons of natural gas per year from the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline, developer Glenfarne announced Wednesday.
A final decision on whether to build the pipeline for in-state use is expected by the end of the year.
Company officials say that by the end of 2026, they will decide whether to build the pipeline’s export components, which would be needed to fulfill the new deal.
Under a deal finalized in March, Glenfarne owns 75% of the AKLNG project, as the gas effort is known, with the remaining 25% owned by the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., a state-owned corporation.
Financing the multibillion-dollar project is a major hurdle, and export agreements like the one signed Wednesday with the Japanese utility JERA, which produces one-third of Japan’s electricity, could decide whether banks are willing to loan money for the pipeline’s construction.
Glenfarne has previously announced agreements with Taiwan’s CPC and Thailand’s PTT, both state-owned energy companies.
When all three agreements are combined, they amount to 9 million tons of the expected 20 million-ton pipeline capacity. Glenfarne itself may take another share, approximately 2 million tons per year, though that share could be replaced by other third-party agreements.
As a result, Glenfarne now has “preliminary commercial agreements for more than half of Alaska LNG’s available third-party LNG offtake capacity,” it said in a statement.
Since the start of his second term in office, President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for the project. Rex Cannon, co-president of the subsidiary 8 Star Alaska, in charge of developing the pipeline project, said last month that the U.S. Department of Energy could provide federal loans for the effort.
A recently negotiated trade deal between Japan and the United States could have the government of Japan invest in the project as well, but that idea remains unconfirmed.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed in a TV interview last week that Japan would be required under the broader trade deal to direct $550 billion toward projects in the United States. He suggested the Alaska gas pipeline as an example.
Japanese officials have not confirmed Lutnick’s perspective, and reports out of Japan have been skeptical.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, resigned on Sunday, and it was not immediately clear whether that would affect trade negotiations.
This week, the news service Reuters reported that Japan has hired energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie to assess the feasibility of the pipeline project. Wood Mackenzie worked for the state on previous iterations of the project.
South Korea, another major potential buyer of Alaska gas, has not yet announced whether it will or will not buy gas from the pipeline or otherwise participate.
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
