By ROBERT SEITZ
June 3, 2026 – It will not take any Hail Mary’s or acts of contrition. However, I recommend prayers for people to make right decisions.
If we look at the Alaska LNG project we will see that during the construction phase, Alaska will be busy and money will be pouring into communities all over the state. Trucks will be hauling, restaurants will be feeding, building material stores will be selling materials to build camps, vehicle sales will increase, hotels will fill up, and ports of entry will be receiving materials and equipment.
So for those who are concerned with the requested 10-year delay before the property tax would kick in can look back at years of increased financial activity in the state which would have a great economic impact on many communities in the state.
So there should be some room for empathy of an organization which has committed itself to a large project and committed is resources to that project. Once the project is completed there will be no cash flow with which to pay back loans and investments. There is no cash flow until product flows to market.
The Alpine Project was a project for which design began in about 1996 and construction was completed in 2000. It was a $750 million project, but as construction was being completed the price for oil was $9/barrel. People were nervous and some small parts of the facility were removed from construction before those parts got started, just to cut the out flow of cash. Around start up, the price of oil was up to $26/barrel and the initial flow was about 86,000 barrels/day. Cash flow was about to begin because it takes a little time to get to a refinery.
All Glenfarne and the State of Alaska wants is a project climate that will attract good investors quickly. Delay of property tax will help with that. To help with the concern over the cost of the project, the Iran War needs to be settled well enough to get the price of crude oil back down to reasonable level so that the shipping and work is not done with very high fuel prices. Hopefully Glenfarne has some equipment prices secure in contracts so that once fuel prices drop equipment prices and delivery times will work together to provide a constructed cost close to what we have been given.
To answer one question about the price of gas in Southcentral from my commenters:
“The price of gas in South Central will not be lower once the pipeline is built.”
You have Cook Inlet gas which will be your least expensive natural gas supply for some time. Hilcorp and Hex will be drilling gas wells every year to keep the available amount of gas up where no one has to panic. Keep encouraging these companies to keep drilling and expanding the amount of natural gas that is available. Fairbanks and the North Star Borough will greatly benefit once gas is available there. It will be the least costly fuel as soon as it hit town. If they could start generating electricity with that fuel customers of Golden Valley Electric Associate will benefit.
The AK LNG project will not have sufficient cash flow in with gas distributed in state. It will not be until The LNG is finally shipped to our overseas customers that sufficient cash flow will begin that the investment can begin to be repaid. As for investors, maybe there could be a Pick, Click and Give account with the Permanent Fund Dividend, through which we can contribute, be a way for Alaskan to invest in the natural gas project. We could all be venture capitalists.
Lack and delay of action to pass positive legislation to show Alaska is behind this project can only discourage potential investors. Show your confidence. We’ve done big projects before. We still have some very skilled and knowledgeable engineers, smart managers and skilled laborers who can get it done.
Once the project begins, there will be cash flow in this state. Let your legislator and everybody else you know that this pipeline will work and provide benefits to Alaskan and add revenue to the State Treasury. Doing nothing will have no positive results.
Robert Seitz is a professional electrical engineer and lifelong Alaskan.
8 thoughts on “Robert Seitz: A response to commenters and some guidance for legislators”
How can Alaska’s LNG line be built without even one contract from an investor and how can regular everyday people buy stocks from Glenfarne when that company has been delisted by SEC regulators and no longer issues stocks and furthermore, how can Alaska sell LNG when the North Slope oil companies only support phase 1 and not phase 2 which would have a exporting plant in Nikiski to sell our LNG?
Summarize; No seller, No Buyer, No pipeline.
Well put 3rd. Plus Glenfarme won’t tell us the price tag. Who does business that way?
Lots of businesses do business that way, almost all private businesses do business that way. Since Glenfarne isn’t a publicly traded company there is no requirement for them to share their private business with you, just like the LLC next door isn’t required to tell you their business.
Now you’re just getting silly, and increasingly hysterical, which may be good news as it seems to demonstrate that Glenfarne is a lot closer to getting the project started than you and your cheerleaders like.
So far, 3 North Slope producers, Conoco – Phillips, Exxon – Mobile and Hillcorp all signed supply agreements.
Nobody in their right mind will sign an investor agreement until the terms of that agreement are known, nor should they, This is the vehicle the democrat / RINO / BANANA caucus are trying to use to kill the project. It’s why they are diddling property tax obligations and foot dragging on the enabling legislatio. I do expect the agreements are teed up for signature should the legislature get off its backside and actually get something done.
Demanding Phase 2 agreements right now is the functional equivalent of athletes demanding second contracts before a rookie even steps onto the field / court for a single regular season play. Makes a lot of noise, but is ultimately irrational and once again, hysterical. Cheers –
Without a phase 2 agreement by the oil companies, pipeline investors would never be interested in building an Alaska LNG line. Overseas buyers are needed to fund both phases 1 and 2 at the same time.
A phase 1 line is fine and dandy but could never be funded by Alaska rate payers., Were talking about a 42 inch diameter line which is only 6 inches less in diameter than the oil pipeline, a huge mega project 10 to 12 years to build and cover 3 Alaska governor terms, and Glenfarne says 45 billion?,. double it.
Come on agimarc, keep it going.
On Pebble you’ve previously argued that the size, as Pebble has proposed, isn’t the actual size of the mine and that the actual size of the mine would be factors of multitude larger than the largest open pit mine in existence. Now you are arguing that the developers of the pipeline need to go bigger? On Pebble you’ve previously argued that large multinational corporations shouldn’t be allowed to do business in Alaska. Now you are arguing that the developers of the pipeline need to involve large multinational corporations? It seems that your argument is much more about not developing the resources of this state than they are against the size of proposed projects or who is involved in proposed projects.
Pick, click , give from a nonexistent PFD right? The thieves in Juneau don’t bother to consider the loss of charitable giving every year when they steal the dividend. It doesn’t bother them, they get paid, regardless.
“The AK LNG project will not have sufficient cash flow in with gas distributed in state. It will not be until The LNG is finally shipped to our overseas customers that sufficient cash flow will begin that the investment can begin to be repaid.”
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Did you just say, Robert, that your LNG line is, and always has been, about selling Alaska’s gas to communist China and friends, but not to Alaskans who get nothing except the opportunity to pay more for gas, and subsidize Glenfarme’s property taxes?
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We’re not anti-gas line. Problem might be just bad optics or lousy public relations, but so far, it looks like Glenfarme’s:
(a) taking Alaska’s natural resource,
(b) selling them to overseas customers, at least one of whom is generationally dedicated to defeating America,
(c) offering Alaskans essentially nothing in return (think full PFD’s, property-tax reductions, new natural-gas service),
(d) saying nothing substantive about corporate intentions,
(d) maneuvering to stiff taxpayers with the cost of doing business, and
(e) using the public instead of their own employees for corporate cheerleading (which does -not- inspire confidence).
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So, our answer to the company is “YES, build the damned thing, BUT first answer these, you know investors asked already, tell us what you told them.
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1. How much will Alaskans’ heating and electric bills increase after pipeline construction?
2. Will product be sold directly or indirectly to Communist China?
3. If supply or demand issues arise, are Asian buyers prioritized over Alaskan customers?
4. Are Communist Chinese entities involved in project financing, insurance, or construction?
5. Are contingency plans in place to assure political or labor instability don’t disrupt the project?
6. Recall Governor Palin’s $500M giveaway to TransCanada, what protects taxpayers from a similar giveaway or debt trap?
7. What assures pipeline-control gear will be CISA vetted? (https://www.cisa.gov/)
8. When LNG development is actually over, will AGDC be disbanded?
9. What assures Alaskans and the Permanent Fund won’t be liable for up-front costs, contractor fraud, and losses if Glenfarne can’t get, or later loses, binding financial commitments from Asian companies and governments?
(https://ptop.substack.com/p/guide-to-uncovering-contractor-fraud?)
10. What makes Polar LNG -not- better positioned to move natural gas by leveraging existing Prudhoe Bay infrastructure, minimizing new onshore development, and delivering a more efficient and lower-impact path to market …at a quarter of the cost?
(https://polarlng.com/project/)
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11. On June 25, 2025, AGDC released an updated $38.7 billion cost estimate for the Alaska LNG Project.
(https://agdc.us/updated-38-7-billion-project-construction-cost/)
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Now Glenfarne wants $44B +.
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Then there’s this: “The latest evidence that no one knows what the gas will cost comes from an independent report by Rapidan Energy Group, which says the likely cost of the pipeline project is far higher than the $44 billion estimate still in circulation …Add in the cost of the so-called first phase—building a pipeline from the North Slope to Anchorage without compression and export facilities and the total project cost would exceed $70B.”
(https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2025/6/24/glenfarnes-latest-deceptive-press-release-about-alaska-lng-project)
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Who pays when project cost runs up to, say, $90B, or reaches a point at which it’s not cost effective anymore because financial, geopolitical, legal, and physical risks outweigh benefits, making it unlikely to turn a profit during the lifetime of anyone alive today? What is that stop point?
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12. Are Alaskans right to be concerned about what the Rapidan analysis shows, which the Dunleavy administration, AGDC, and Glenfarne analyses apparently don’t show?
(https://www.rapidanenergy.com/about)
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13. Are legislators wrong to tax to the max natural gas taken from Alaska and sold to communist China, and use the revenue for individual property-tax reductions and full PFD’s?
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Thanks, Robert, for your insightful article, and if you have time, you might consider taking over Glenfarme’s PR shop since they’ve failed rather miserably to get their message out.