Cook Inlet gas production falls to 61 Bcf in 2025

Cook Inlet natural gas production has fallen to roughly 61 billion cubic feet in 2025, a level that barely covers what Southcentral Alaska consumes each year and leaves almost no margin for a cold winter.

That number tells the story. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the inlet produced more than 300 billion cubic feet annually. Today, production and demand have converged. ENSTAR Natural Gas Company President John Sims told the Senate Finance Committee in June that the region now consumes 60 to 70 billion cubic feet per year, counting utilities, the Marathon refinery, and gas used in oil production. What the inlet produces is roughly what the region burns.

The daily picture is tighter still. Sims told legislators that daily production has dropped from about 350 million cubic feet in 2010 to around 200 million today. ENSTAR's winter peak demand reaches 320 million cubic feet per day. On the coldest days, the inlet cannot cover it.

Hilcorp Alaska, which operates all but one of the gas-producing fields in the basin, has drilled 192 wells since 2012 and spent more than $1.5 billion to hold production steady. Individual wells decline 30 to 40 percent annually, so the company must keep drilling just to stay even. Hilcorp plans 25 wells in Cook Inlet in 2026. All other operators in the basin combined drilled a handful of wells over the same period.

Sims said ENSTAR's concern is not just the current gap but what happens if Hilcorp slows its pace. No other company in the inlet has the balance sheet to sustain that kind of drilling program, he said.

Utilities have concluded that Cook Inlet production alone cannot be relied upon to meet future demand. ENSTAR is developing an LNG import terminal at Nikiski with Glenfarne, targeting first imports in 2029. A Hilcorp affiliate is pursuing a competing import project aimed at 2027. The state's own revenue modeling assumes Cook Inlet will continue its decline and that any North Slope gas line would fill the gap rather than replace inlet supply.