Japan is exploring offtake agreements to buy LNG from the planned export project in Alaska as part of the Japanese pledge to buy $7 billion worth of U.S. energy products, per a joint statement on the U.S.-Japan trade deal quoted by Reuters on Friday.
On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to implement the U.S.-Japan trade agreement reached in July.
Under the agreement, Japan gets a 15% tariff on its goods and pledges to buy $8 billion worth of American products per year. The Government of Japan has agreed to invest $550 billion in the United States, the White House said.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, hailed the deal as “historic” and said that the U.S. would use the $500-billion Japanese investment “to build our energy infrastructure, chip manufacturing, critical minerals mining, and shipbuilding to name a few.”
“What we’ve achieved with our Japanese partners is an absolute game changer for America’s future — and it’s exactly what the America First trade agenda is all about,” Lutnick posted on X.
In July, as President Trump touted “the largest trade deal in history” with Japan, he also noted that the United States and Japan are set to conclude another deal to form a joint venture for LNG in Alaska.
“We concluded the one deal … and now we’re going to conclude another one because they’re forming a joint venture with us at, in Alaska, as you know, for the LNG,” President Trump said in comments on the deal to GOP lawmakers at the White House.
Japanese companies have been considering investments in the $44-billion Alaska LNG project, but so far they have appeared to be concerned that the costs may be too high, considering the cold weather in Alaska and the scale of the pipelines needed to bring the project on stream.
Energy companies are ready to commit to buying $115 billion worth of LNG from Alaska once President Trump’s pet energy project gets done, the company in charge of the project, Glenfarne, said in June, noting that as many as 50 companies have expressed formal interest.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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