JUNEAU — The developer of the giant Alaska LNG project is telling federal regulators that it expects to begin construction in April, as part of a plan to build construction camps, access roads and close to 100 bridge crossings to support pipeline construction.

It’s part of Glenfarne’s ambitious schedule to start laying the steel pipe for the 800-mile gas line by the end of this year.

Some Alaska lawmakers are skeptical the work can happen by then, if at all.

Glenfarne has not announced a final investment decision to build the project, though it’s expected to cost at least $44 billion. That longtime cost estimate has recently been updated, but Glenfarne has said it won’t publicly release that information.

Glenfarne last month announced that it had signed several preliminary deals with gas producers and gas line builders, atop other preliminary deals with potential gas buyers. The agreements are nonbinding, but are viewed as key steps that could one day lead to binding agreements.

[Alaska LNG says it expects to start laying pipe as early as December]

Alaska lawmakers who are increasingly focused on the proposed project say they believe Glenfarne still needs to take important steps that could delay the project.

They say Glenfarne has not sought any support from the Legislature for Alaska LNG, though the company said in a statement Wednesday that it is pursuing “property tax reforms” with state and local leaders.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a project supporter, has said he plans to introduce a bill that would reduce the state’s oil and gas property taxes by 90% to assist the project.

A consultant for the Alaska Legislature, GaffneyCline, has said a property tax reduction could save the developer important money up front while additional state benefits that provide the project with “fiscal stability” may also be needed from the Legislature. GaffneyCline is a subsidiary of oil field service giant Baker Hughes, which has said it plans to provide equipment for the project and make a “strategic investment” in it.

Major questions for the project include: Who will pay for it? What steps must the Legislature take to support it? And when will binding contracts with gas buyers and suppliers be signed?

Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a Republican, said she doesn’t believe Glenfarne will keep to its schedule.

Glenfarne’s target of laying pipe by year’s end “is completely unrealistic,” she said told reporters Tuesday.

One hurdle the company has yet to pursue is certification from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska of its financial and managerial fitness, Giessel told reporters. That takes six months, she said.

The company also hasn’t provided the Legislature with any fiscal information that would help lawmakers understand more about the project, she said.

“There’s a lot more to know,” she said.

“I’m not even sure they can come to a final investment decision, in light of the fact that we haven’t even determined what our tax structure will be for this project,” she said.

Glenfarne’s filing, made with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week, does not represent a final schedule, said Tim Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for Glenfarne, in an email Wednesday.

Rather, it shows how “early works” — initial construction — will be sequenced, he said.

He said the project is moving toward a final investment decision. That had originally been expected late last year.

Fitzpatrick also said Glenfarne faces no financial-fitness certification requirement before the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

“Alaska LNG is a FERC-regulated project so this RCA certification requirement is not applicable in this instance and as such has no bearing on Alaska LNG’s schedule,” Fitzpatrick said.

“Pending FERC authorization, we are moving forward with Early Works on a pace that will enable Alaska LNG to rapidly deliver reliable, affordable energy to Alaskans,” he said.

Tons of bridges and access roads

In its first phase, Alaska LNG would deliver North Slope natural gas to Railbelt Alaskans through an 800-mile pipeline, if it’s built. The cost has been estimated at $11 billion.

The final, more expensive phase would include construction of a plant and marine terminal in Nikiski, where gas can be super-chilled into liquefied natural gas, or LNG, for shipment to Asian markets.

The state of Alaska, through its Alaska Gasline Development Corp., is a 25% partner in the project. The state will also have the option to invest up to 25% in the project’s major facilities, each of which will cost several billion dollars.

Glenfarne, based in New York, disclosed its pipe-laying plans last month.

The filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission provides new details about more immediate plans.

The company said construction for “early works” will start April 15, the filing shows.

Those activities include installation of 20 main construction camps and 46 sites to store pipes.

They include 98 bridge crossings that are up to 90 feet long, along with six specialized bridges.

Temporary and permanent access roads must also be built from ice and “granular fill material,” which can include sand or gravel.

Early construction includes 619 segments of access road, the filing says.

The information required to support the early activities will be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on March 15, in an effort to obtain authorization, the filing says.

Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, a Democrat and chair of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, said she hasn’t heard of any support the Legislature might be asked to provide, if any, to support those early activities.

“With respect to man camps or access roads, I’m not aware of any requests from Glenfarne for any state support,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

“A lot of what they’re doing has been so secret and confidential,” she said.

She’s cautiously optimistic the project can be built, but she said she doubts Glenfarne can meet its rapid timeline.

“I’m certainly not out of touch with reality,” she said.

Alaska lawmakers have said they’re uncertain what steps they may be asked to take to provide the full project with long-term fiscal stability, if any.

They say they’re awaiting the governor’s property tax proposal.

Giessel told reporters on Tuesday: “Glenfarne has told us, ‘Don’t worry, this is a private-sector project. We will bear all of the cost. We will get investors. We will take all of the overruns and delays. We’ll take all that responsibility.’”

Fitzpatrick, with Glenfarne, said the company “continues to make progress toward a final investment decision for Alaska LNG.”

That includes “engaging with state and local policymakers on property tax reforms that will enable Alaska LNG to proceed and successfully unlock billions of dollars in royalty, tax, and other economic benefits for Alaskans,” he said.

“State and borough officials have recognized that Alaska’s high property taxes are an impediment for a North Slope natural gas project for more than a decade, and this issue has repeatedly been raised before the legislature including in testimony from Glenfarne and the legislature’s oil and gas consultants,” he said.

Asked about the need for state permits for early construction such as the proposed roads or bridge crossings, Fitzpatrick said, “Permitting requirements are fully accounted for in our construction plan.”

Glenfarne is working on smaller LNG export projects in the Lower 48, including Magnolia LNG in Louisiana and Texas LNG.

Giessel told reporters that Glenfarne has not reached a final investment decision for those projects.

“In fact, they’ve not reached FID on any North American project yet, and that Texas project has been in the works now for a couple of years,” she said. “So I am skeptical about any of those timelines they had in that FERC document.”

Should Alaska invest?

House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, a Republican, said he’s optimistic the Alaska LNG project will be built this time after decades of unsuccessful attempts by earlier, similar projects.

“I do appreciate that all the capital risk has been on them to this point,” Kopp said of Glenfarne.

“The spend rate, whatever it is, I really don’t know,” he said. “But I know (Glenfarne has) spent a lot and the state has not.”

Kopp said the state might want to consider investing 5% in the pipeline, at a potential cost of around $600 million, from the $3 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve savings account.

“If we had an investor interest, we would have access to everything another investor could rightfully see before they made that decision,” he said.

An investment could increase revenue to the state through tariff income that would come alongside production taxes, royalties and other income, he said.

The project is important because it has the potential to support future generations of Alaskans, he said.

The idea of a state investment in the project is something he’s discussing with colleagues, he said.

Kopp said he believes the lack of information from the company to lawmakers may relate to upcoming details that could push the project forward.

Perhaps President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech, set for Feb. 24, includes more federal support for the project, perhaps even a direct investment, Kopp said.

“I don’t have any insider baseball on this,” he said. ”But it would be consistent with how this administration likes do things. And the president has said Alaska is a national energy and a national strategic priority.”

“So there could be a massive commitment that pushes this into FID,” or final investment decision, he said.

Rep. Ky Holland, an independent and co-chair of the House Energy Committee, said he — along with many other Alaskans — would love to see the project built.

He said it has received state attention and funding in the past that has prevented state investment in other opportunities, including in renewable energy that could support stable utility costs, such as the Susitna-Watana Dam project or wind projects.

In that way, it’s been a “drag on the economy,” he said.

It’s hard to say if Alaska LNG will be built, he said.

“I’m still waiting to see clear ship-or-pay binding agreements for someone to buy gas,” he said. “Absent that, I appreciate the level of enthusiasm the current developers have.”

Holland said state agencies don’t appear to be staffed up with needed manpower and finances to support the project’s permitting requirements, while budgets for workforce training or contractor assistance appear inadequate. Thousands of workers will be needed to build the pipeline.

“The (state agency) budgets I’ve seen look like business as usual, which is barely keeping the wheels on the bus,” he said.

Wildfires on Alaska’s North Slope are more frequent and more severe now than they have been at any point over the past 3,000 years, research suggests.

The findings are based on satellite data, as well as on soil pulled from peatlands that contain ancient chunks of charcoal and other signs of wildfires. The research team says the increase in blazes, driven by permafrost thaw and tundra “shrubification,” constitutes a new wildfire regime that will likely intensify as global temperatures continue to rise.

Lawmakers succeeded last year in their effort to permanently boost the state’s per-student funding formula for K-12 public schools, twice overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes to cement an increase that educators had long asked for.

But after years of flat funding from the state and declining enrollment, districts across Alaska this year say they are still in dire straits. The Anchorage School District, which last year spent down its budget reserve amid state funding uncertainty, is facing a $90 million deficit. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District has a $23 million deficit. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is estimating a deficit of $8.5 million. Juneau schools face a deficit of more than $5 million.

Senate Education Committee Chair Löki Tobin called the funding increase approved last year “woefully insufficient.”

The bipartisan majority coalition in the Alaska House is still prioritizing school funding, said House Education Committee Co-Chair Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, a Sitka independent, in an interview on Tuesday. But the mechanism by which that funding stability will be achieved remains unclear, she said.

“Education remains one of our No. 1 priorities, so we’re not backing away from it in the House Majority coalition, in any way at all,” said Himschoot. “Now the political reality of what’s possible is a different story. So whatever is possible — we’re committed to doing — and the limitation is what is actually possible.”

That political reality is shaped by limited revenue and “advocacy fatigue” that has left Alaskans tired of again asking for a funding boost after making it a flagship issue during the preceding two legislative sessions.

Last year’s boost to the state’s education formula was hailed by districts as a success, though it amounted to less than half the funding amount that public educators requested in 2024. Last year’s legislation yielded no effective revenue increase to most schools, because it came on the heels of an outside-the-formula spending boost of equal size in the preceding fiscal year.

In effect, the state’s K-12 education budget dropped between last year and the current year, by roughly $20 million, following a student enrollment drop of nearly 1,000 students.

Alaska has 125,317 public school students this year, according to data collected in the fall by the state. That’s down from 126,284 in 2024; 127,931 in 2023; and 128,088 in 2022.

Despite lawmakers’ hard-fought battles over education funding in recent years, the state’s effective spending on K-12 schools has remained virtually unchanged, going from $1.29 billion in the 2023 fiscal year to $1.33 billion in the current fiscal year, a roughly 3% increase, far below the inflation rate in the same period.

The governor’s budget draft introduced in December accounts for no new education funding this year, even as Dunleavy asked for spending increases for most other executive branch departments, to account for salary increases and other inflation-driven costs.

“Everything that our state government does requires increases every year, and yet we’re not providing those increases to education,” said Himschoot.

Funding woes have translated to different challenges across the state. In urban areas, including Anchorage, stagnant state funding has led districts to shutter enrichment programs and sports and grow class sizes. In rural areas, districts are struggling to keep buildings operational and qualified teachers in classrooms.

Ideas for shoring up education funding this year abound, said Himschoot and Tobin. They include pegging the state’s funding formula, known as the Base Student Allocation, to an inflation metric; providing dedicated funding streams for high-value budget items like reading coaches and vocational instructors; and upping state spending on the maintenance and repair of school buildings.

But three weeks into the legislative session, it is not immediately clear which of those ideas — if any — could garner enough support from the House and Senate to become law and fit into a tight budget process.

“We’ve got to get 11 votes in the Senate, 21 votes in the House, and hopefully get it past the governor. If that’s not the case, then I’m going to be working to get 40 (votes),” said Tobin, alluding to the threshold needed to override the governor.

Senate leaders said Tuesday that they are focused on addressing a backlog that has left school buildings with deferred maintenance and repair projects worth more than $2 billion.

The Legislature has in recent years funded only a fraction of maintenance projects identified as priorities by schools. The identified priorities are themselves an undercount of needed projects, lawmakers say, because some districts have stopped applying to the state for funding.

Dunleavy has during his tenure repeatedly slashed education funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually for both school operations and maintenance. He has not commented publicly this year on whether he would allow an education funding increase to become law or again use his veto pen.

“The Senate majority is continuing to look for pathways to help support our struggling public school infrastructure, and also our public school services, and we are going to use every opportunity and everything available to us to invest in the best and most important resource our state has, which is our children,” said Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat.

Himschoot said she doesn’t think it’s realistic “at all” to again increase the Base Student Allocation by $700, which is what lawmakers did last year — bringing it from $5,960 to $6,660. But a smaller increase may be possible, she said.

“Will there be some kind of BSA inflationary adjustment? I think that’s on the table. Will there be funding to other programs that bring relief to districts? I think that’s on the table. In the absence of a solid fiscal plan, it’s really hard to talk about what’s possible,” Himschoot said.

Dunleavy last year vetoed a bill approved by lawmakers that would have raised between $25 million and $65 million by applying the state’s corporate income tax to Outside companies providing online services to Alaskans. That bill would have directed the new revenue to reading assistance and vocational programs in Alaska schools. After lawmakers failed to override Dunleavy’s veto last month, House majority members reintroduced the revenue bill. It is scheduled for a hearing later this week.

The House Education Committee is currently considering a bill from Rep. Andi Story, a Juneau Democrat who co-chairs the committee, which would change the way the state allocates money to districts. The bill would allow the districts to average out their attendance numbers over a three-year period, rather than using a single-year figure, among other changes. That would provide districts with more funding stability even as their enrollment numbers fluctuate.

The change is based on recommendations that appeared in a 2015 report commissioned by lawmakers.

According to Dunleavy administration education officials, the change could increase state spending on schools more than $70 million in the coming fiscal year. Of that, roughly $23 million would go to the Anchorage School District; nearly $10 million would go to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District; and more than $8 million would go to the Kenai Peninsula borough School District.

But it’s not immediately clear whether that bill will get the support needed to advance.

“I don’t see $70 million low-hanging fruit anywhere in the state right now,” said Himschoot.

“To me, it’s reasonable,” she said on the prospect of spending that amount from state savings. “To some of my colleagues, it’s not reasonable at all.”

Daily News reporter Mari Kanagy contributed from Juneau.