By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s energy security council plans to host a summit in Alaska in early June, when it hopes Japan and South Korea will announce commitments to the Alaska LNG project, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Trump has touted the $44 billion Alaska liquefied natural gas project, which would deliver gas from the state’s North Slope fields via an 800-mile (1,300-km) pipeline for domestic use and also ship it to customers in Asia as LNG, bypassing the Panama Canal.
While the project has been talked about for years, progress has been limited by cost and the amount of work needed.
Trump, who has pushed allies to buy U.S. energy while simultaneously threatening trade tariffs, has asked Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to support the Alaskan plan.
Last month, Taiwanese state energy company CPC Corp signed a non-binding agreement with the state-run Alaska Gasline Development Corp, to buy LNG and invest in the project, a move Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said would ensure the island’s energy security.
The summit being planned by Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, which wants to maximize production of oil and gas, would take place around June 2. It was first reported by The New York Times (NYSE:NYT).
The Department of Energy did not comment on the summit, but said the project would provide jobs, energy security to the United States and allies, and is estimated to reduce the U.S. trade deficit by $10 billion annually.
Separately, officials from Thailand, which could also be a consumer of the LNG from Alaska, and South Korea are expected to visit the state to talk about the project sometime in the next two weeks, said the source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
It would be the first visit to Alaska by officials from Thailand to talk about the project in Trump’s second administration.
South Korea’s Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun said on Thursday in Washington that he was not aware of a plan to announce its commitment, and "there are still a lot of things that need to be done" through due diligence of the Alaska LNG project in order "to understand the local situation more accurately".
Ahn said that the country is dispatching an inspection team, and results of the due diligence would need to be reviewed to see how discussions will proceed.