Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks during a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP-Yonhap) The United States is in talks with South Korean, Japanese and other companies about an Alaska liquefied natural gas project, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday, noting that the project should be under construction roughly in the next 12 months.
Wright made the remarks during a press briefing in New York, as US President Donald Trump’s administration hopes South Korea, Japan and other Asian nations will invest in the project aimed at building a pipeline connecting the North Slope, a massive, proven reserve of natural gas, to southern Alaska for exports.
“We’re talking to multiple companies — Japanese companies, Korean companies, Asian companies. I think the prospects for Alaskan LNG look quite strong, so I think that project should be under construction in the next 12 months-ish,” he said during the briefing hosted by the Foreign Press Center in New York.
“It will take a few years to build, but what’s great is it’s very short ship traffic from there to our awesome allies, like Japan in East Asia. And at the end of the day, the gas that’ll come out of there will be no more expensive than gas coming from all the other LNG export terminals,” he added.
The LNG project, which is estimated to cost over $40 billion, comes as Trump pushes for America’s “energy dominance.” (Yonhap)