A news account in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday says what Alaska politicians won’t: “Japan and South Korea have rebuffed U.S. overtures about joining a proposed $44 billion Alaska natural-gas project that would be one of the biggest energy investments in American history.”

The story quotes Sen. Dan Sullivan as saying the Alaska gas pipeline is closer than ever, which is a claim that Alaska politicians have been making since long before Sullivan moved to Alaska. Sullivan says that private buyers in Asia are lining up to pledge billions of their money.

"That private sector component is really important and that is happening as we speak," he said.

To quote myself from 2015, “Generations of political leaders in Alaska have gone to their golden years declaring that a gas pipeline is ‘closer than ever before.’” (Here is a brief history.)

The price of the project is likely to push $50 billion before long and it will be hard to persuade buyers in Japan and Korea that the project can deliver gas by 2030. The money to build a gas pipeline has to be based on long-term purchase contracts worth tens of billions.

“Potential buyers aren't confident in the project's timeline, according to officials at companies and in the Japanese government. They believe that Asian countries will have other sources of stable natural-gas supplies by 2030, although the gas market is volatile and competing projects also carry risks,” the Journal news account said.

Then again, if this is such an attractive investment, why are ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Hilcorp staying silent and refusing to invest billions? The answer should be obvious.

“The Asian buyers also are concerned about the lack of major investment commitments by big U.S. energy companies to the Alaska project,” the news account said.

Mixed in with the quotes from Sullivan and the head of the state pipeline promotion office about how the pipeline project is closer than ever, are these sentences about how the would-be buyers in Japan interpret the same energy facts:

However, LNG consumers in Asia say they are looking for supply contracts that could provide gas in the next three to four years, when supply conditions are predicted to remain particularly tight. Other projects in places such as Canada and the Gulf Coast promise to deliver on a quicker timeline, they say.

Japanese officials said the farther out a project's timeline extends, the greater the worry that it would bump up against the country's commitment to have zero net carbon emissions by 2050.

"People are so unsure about the future of LNG. As of now they see huge demand, but what will happen 10 years or 15 years from now remains a question mark," said Tatsuya Terazawa, head of the government-affiliated Institute of Energy Economics Japan.

That uncertainty makes it hard to get companies in Japan and Korea and other countries to promise to buy billions of dollars worth of LNG for decades to come. The financial promise to buy gas is a difficult commitment to make in an era where the energy future is so uncertain.

The only thing certain is the political puffery.

“If we’re ever going to get a gas line, we will know within the next few months,” Dunleavy said in June 2022. “All the conditions are there.”

After that prediction, economist Roger Marks wrote that we are closer to a Mid-East peace plan. He was being optimistic.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.