2026 Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference Thursday part 3

Technology. In the developed world, it continues to accelerate at a tremendous speed. We can now access the world's intelligence with a small handheld device, share documents in the blink of an eye, or even communicate with people in other languages. It has allowed us to work remotely, speak to families around the world, and to entertain us in ways we never imagined. The future promises even more advancement.

New forms of transportation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. But have we forgotten what makes all of this possible? An abundant, uninterrupted river of electrons delivered 24 hours a day. This river of electrons begins with the labor of skilled workers. We extract resources from the earth.

These resources by themselves are useless, but through engineering and execution are crafted into tools, tools used to power our world and as building blocks for our advanced society. This energy feeds the world, powers manufacturing, delivers clean water and a healthy environment. Without access to an abundant and consistent stream of energy, civilization will grind to a The world needs solutions. Fronteras' next-generation fuel discovery technology called FastForm is a significant step forward. It uses plentiful existing energy-rich materials and quickly extracts maximum energy-value hydrocarbons while creating a more empowering environment.

One that can feed the world. And feed the world's machines.

Hydrocarbons, the technology that enables high-tech, abundant, affordable, and available energy for all. Frontieras.

Andrea, welcome. I think this is your first time at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference. And it's been so nice to be able to spend a little bit of time with you this week and to get to know you. Last night we were visiting at dinner and I would like to say that the conversation was all things energy, but with several of us, we got off speaking with the folks from POSCO about Korean face products among many other conversations. But it's just been really a pleasure to get to know you.

And I'd love it if you could share with us today about Frontierist and about your technology. Excellent. Thank you, Julie. First, I just want to thank you for having me here. It's my first time in Alaska.

I hope to be back next year at this conference. And before we jump in, I also just want to say, this is probably one of the best conferences I have ever attended. And Andrea Johnson, thank you. You and your team have done an amazing job. I'm really here because of ADA.

I started having conversations with ADA about a year and a half ago, and I want to thank them for their support as well. And, and that's why I'm sitting here today.

So Fronteras— you just saw the video— Fronteras is an industrial energy and environmental technology company. We're headquartered in Houston. We are truly redefining the entire global sector of coal utilization. Just think about that. We're not burning it, but we're converting it into high-value products through a zero-waste and closed-loop process.

We are built on private capital, market economics. We have no government subsidies needed. Our tagline is our mission: and you just saw that on the video, abundant, affordable energy for all.

We hold 9 patents across 5 continents. United States was our hardest to get, of course. Canada, Australia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, China, Russia, and Germany. Our patents cover over 85% of the world's coal-producing countries. We also have PCT disclosures in another 139 countries.

This is 15 years of innovation behind this technology. It's not a concept, and it's proven, and it's completely protected. So let me talk a little bit about our technology. We call our technology FastForm. It's— but actually it's called solid carbon fractionation.

We thermally deconstruct coal and other solid hydrocarbons like lignite, coal sands, oil sands in a sealed oxygen-deficient reactor under very moderate heat and pressure. Literally, we are a coal refinery. We use all industrial equipment today. We did not invent any equipment. Our equipment is used in crude refining today.

As a matter of fact, we could actually run 40,000 barrels of crude through this refinery without really any changes. Our patents are in method and apparatus and not equipment. So one, Tennant, we don't burn or combust coal, we fractionate it. No combustion means no direct CO2 emissions. Our process runs 24/7.

It's a continuous feed system. Hydrogen and methane are produced in large quantities and really fuel the plant's own thermal requirements, creating a self-sustaining closed-loop energy system. We're also zero waste. We're not net zero, but we are zero waste, meaning that every output, every input that comes into our system really is, we can sell it. They're commodities.

And we'll talk about that in a minute. There's no ash, there's no slag, and there's no waste streams. Little bit of stats. I'm not going to drive you, like, not deep down in stats, but 25 to 35% net CO2 reduction versus traditional coal use today. Meaning burning it, right?

97% Reduction in sulfur oxide emissions. And we eliminate 100% of airborne mercury because we burn it inside our closed-loop system. We are clean and environmental by design. All of our contaminants are captured in the process and converted into products. So I always get this question.

I speak to a lot of folks, investors, and everyone knows about gasification, Fischer-Tropsch, SASL, and when people think about coal to liquids, they think about gasification. So we're not gasification, we're solid carbon fractionation. Fischer-Tropsch requires catalysts, they're very expensive, they operate under extremely high pressure are at extreme temperatures and pressures with enormous amounts of energy used just to operate, and they also require massive amounts of capital. Typically are not commercially viable on very large scale without heavily subsidized environments. Fast-form fractionation, again, I'm gonna reiterate, same process, how crude is fractionated, We separate what's already in there, inside the coal, right?

We all know what's inside coal. It's basically a longer hydrocarbon than liquid fuel, liquid crude. So we peel off all the volatiles, all the gases, and we're left with a purified carbon. We work with— so that's what we do. So what do we produce?

We produce liquid fuels. We produce ultra-low sulfur diesel, kerosene, which is Jet A, and coke, fast carbon, purified carbon. So our process in fractionation is that we move all the volatiles, we remove all the moisture, which means when you're using coal, it brings up the BTU. So about 12,000 BTU. It just depends on what type of solid carbon we're using.

Fast gas, those are the gases, hydrogen, methane, we use to process on site. We actually hydratrate with our own hydrogen to finish fuels. And these gases are not sold. So another thing, especially this is very important for Alaska, is that our output mix, we can dial in a ratio. So we could make 100% ultra-low sulfur diesel, or we can change and make 100% Jet A with our liquids.

And I'll talk a little bit about that more in the— down the road. I'll talk a little bit about Mason County. Mason County is our first flagship. We broke ground on April 2nd, Mason County, West Virginia. Um, CapEx of the project is $850 million.

We're on 184 acres. This is Phase 1 of Phase 2. We have dual logistics. We sit on the Ohio River and also have Class 1 CSX rail. We have, uh, FISAC agreements contracts on an annual basis or a 10-year basis— no, annual basis for 27 million tons of Pit 8 secured under long-term agreements and we consume, right, we don't combust, we consume 7,500 tons of coal a day in this one facility.

The West Virginia governor, the federal senators, the state of senators, the state senators are all in full alignment with us, and they also all attended our groundbreaking. I'm going to also talk a little bit about— and this will be different for Alaska, I already have all the Alaska output for— but I'm going to talk a little bit about really what we make, because this is very impactful when you think about this one facility. On an annual basis, this one facility was consuming 7,500 tons a day. We make 4.8 million barrels of ultra-low sulfur diesel. For this first facility, we're combining our kerosene, so we will not be making Jet A.

Fast carbon, 1.76 million tons a year. That's a lot of coke. Naphtha, 500,000 barrels. Our naphtha is a higher-grade naphtha, and it would go into the chemical markets. Here in Alaska, 'cause your coal has a different, um, proximate analysis.

We will not be making sulfuric acid or ammonium sulfate into fertilizer, but with a Pit 8 coal in West Virginia that's low moisture, high sulfur, we also make sulfuric acid, about 225,000 tons a day— or a year, and fertilizer, 135,000 tons. Think about what's going on today globally. Where we are become a very large fertilizer producer out of coal that we can sell back to the United States. Hydrogen, 8 billion standard cubic feet a year, and methane, 4 billion standard cubic feet a year. We had a large demonstration unit that we ran in College Station, Texas for over a year.

All of our products have been tested third-party engineering, tested by SGS Houston, and all of our products are commodity grade. So right now in West Virginia and perhaps as we move west, not Alaska, that will be down the road when we talk about it a little bit later, they will be marketed and taken off by tier 1 off-takers like an Aramco, a Macquarie, or like a Shell.

I just really appreciate that. I love the video. For some reason the video connected in my mind because I feel like what we don't do a really good job of sometimes is making that connection for the consumers. So I just really appreciated seeing— it might feel simple or simplified, but just seeing the ore coming out of the ground and then what it's going to become. So I really appreciate that.

And I feel like You know, I'm a true— in my mind, I'm a true environmentalist, which means I want to do production of something where we're going to do it best. And I feel like Alaska has demonstrated, you know, for 50 years or more that we can do sustainable resource development and do it so well. So I appreciate that, you know, talking about the products that Frontieris is going to be able to make and then also who would buy it. Right. It's so important.

Excellent. So I want to talk a little bit about, before we jump into our next question, what our growth looks like. So Mason County is our head, is our headquarters. It's our research and development. We felt very honored to come into Mason County.

West Virginia coal built America in Pennsylvania Steel. And so I just want to give an overview of kind of where our pipeline of projects go next. And of course Alaska is on that list. And so we're building a platform. We're just not looking at building projects across America, right?

We're building a full platform. West Virginia, after our flagship project's built, this is greenfield. I can probably tell you we're not looking at greenfield sites further. We might look at brownfield sites on terminals or mine mouth with different coal mining companies, but we have a fast gen strategy that I'll touch on a little bit later. But co-location is our fast gen. And so when I look at West Virginia, they're one of the— they're the second largest producer of coal in the United States on the lower 48, right?

And they have over 10.5 gigawatts of operating coal capacities within 5 to 7 different coal facilities. Ohio, right? Same story. About 6.7 gigawatts of coal-fired utilities capacity. Wyoming, we don't have to really talk about Wyoming.

Number one lower 48 producer of coal. They take about, they're about 40% of all of U.S. coal. And they have about 9 operating coal-fired coal-burning facilities. I will actually be there in a couple weeks. Montana, Kentucky, and Alaska, which is why I'm here today.

So I'm here today. Alaska has 6 fired coal facilities across the interior. You have more coal than a lifetime here. I've heard a lot of different numbers. On my stats, it says 5 trillion.

I've heard different numbers. Throughout the conference. So lots of coal here, which makes Alaska a very tier one priority for Frontierous.

That's very exciting. I just want to make sure, you know, if there's— when I envision, you know, FastGen and this incredibly exciting, you know, work that you're doing, we'll be watching closely, by the way, the construction of your plant. But can you just let us know if Is there anything else that you think of when you think about fast gen in Alaska? Sure. So, so, um, I can jump to Alaska circular economy.

So basically, when I think about Alaska, um, this is a very— it's a, it's a very greenfield country. I, I look at it as a country. I know it's a state, but it's an immense location. And FastGen, which is our co-location strategy— there's 210 coal utilities left in the United States, and thank you to the current administration, we at least have those until for the next hopefully 2.5, 3 years. FastGen is really our deployment framework of integrating our fast-form processing into units into existing coal plants.

So we don't connect to them, but we co-locate next to coal plants. And this is really a fast scale of our project. So coal utilities have coal contracts, right? They have Title V, they have permitting, they usually have a lot of land, they have logistics already built in. Our greenfield site, Mason County, is a 184-acre soybean farm.

So when you think about that, we need to bring all of those logistics in— barge, rail, gas, electricity. So fast gen, um, for Alaska basically means co-locating with your coal utilities, and we intercept the coal contracts that you already have. Typically the mine is Ysabelle. I've already looked at Ysabelle mine 2 years ago. I've tested your coal here.

It works for us. Um, and what we do is have a tolling agreement with the coal utility. So we intercept their coal, we process the coal, and instead of the coal facilities burning coke or pet coke or typical coal. Now they can burn clean coke, right? No sulfur.

We've removed all of the moisture. All the volatiles have gone into our liquids. And coke, as you know, long time ago in the 1800s when London was flooded with pollution, they're like, please burn coke and not coal anymore. Well, coke is really expensive to make. We make coke very cheaply because it's a byproduct.

It comes out of our process. And then we can feed back coke into coal utilities. And they take the environmental profile of coke burns as clean as natural gas and is smokeless. This also gives the coal utilities economic, enhancement, right? So there's a lot of coal utilities in the United States that, one, are not up to nameplate because of the EPA.

Two, we're not taking away coal usage from the coal plants, but we're giving them an environmental— we're giving them an environmental defense mechanism if in fact The stroke of the pen turns one day and we are back on the decommissioning of 210 sustainable electricity for America. So in Alaska, you have 6 coal-fired power plants, mostly in the interior. Um, what changes for these plants? Really nothing. The boiler now burns fast carbon instead of raw coal.

Same equipment. Dramatically cleaner stack emissions, higher thermal efficiency could be anywhere from up to 14,000 BTU depending on the type of coal we're using. The plant gains new revenue streams, right? So one feedstock here in Alaska, four commodities, four outputs: jet fuel, ultra-low sulfur diesel, naphtha, processed gases, which we use on site, and coke. Sulfur contaminants, they're all removed.

There's no combustion, and we also— which means that you can actually remove your scrubbers from your coal utilities, saving a lot of large coal utilities millions of dollars a year.

We also bring in jobs to the economy. So for instance, Mason County construction will have about 2,000 independent construction workers on our site for 2 years. Our construction time is 20 to 24 months. It might be shorter here because we don't have to move a soybean farm and bring in infrastructure. But we will be employing around 200 people for our coal utility, or for our fast-form utility.

So we can extend a life instead of facing retirement under regulatory pressures, and the plant becomes a modern multi-product asset with decades of, for production ahead of it.

Yeah, I'm just so excited to continue to watch you guys as you develop, and I'm looking forward to you returning to Alaska next year and reporting out on what's been going on. And, you know, I just think as you talk, and I was able— we were able to participate in that conversation with ADA a couple of days ago and hear from Usibelli Mine as well as other companies and other producers, and it was just— and it was a really nice marriage too of the different departments that are involved. It would be Department of Labor, Department of Transportation, Natural Resources. So I know it was a really great conversation and one that I'm hoping we can continue to have. But, you know, for the rest of the group here today, is there anything else that you just would like to offer about what you guys are doing at FAST Gen and just what's on your radar?

Sure. I mean, so we talked a little about FAST Gen. Mason County, but a little bit more about Alaska's circular economy. So Usibelli has about 400+ years of reserves. Now again, I Googled that, so it could be more. I know it's more.

And then our process, fast form, call it, you know, sealed, closed loop, very environmental. We're also environmentalists, right? I think that's what Institutions, when I talk to institutions, they don't get, they're like, "Coal, fossil fuels, I don't know." You know, today, obviously, that conversation has changed. Your markets that we can sell to here, jet fuel. Your military bases, your commercial aviation, your Trans-Pacific cargo, right?

And all your bush fires. That need aviation fuel. Ultra-low sulfur diesel, you have large transportation here with military logistics, the North Slope, fishing, and remote communities. Fast carbon, we already talked about that. You know, coal, feeding it with coal utilities.

You also have an amazing port here that if you don't use all of our coke, We can definitely ship it out to Asia.

Go ahead. Yeah, no, I love that. And I, as you talk, I just think about all of the different applications. You know, there's so much growth. We know that now.

You know, we're so proud of the Ted Stevens Airport. And, you know, the governor talks about how we're the number one in the U.S. and third in the world for air cargo. And those projections just continue to grow. So I just love to think about all of the Opportunities. It's amazing.

So Alaska Coal Future is not about burning coal anymore. So think about that, right? It's about recognizing that coal is the most valuable unrefined hydrocarbon resource in your state. So I think you can let that sink in. Deploying our technology, and I hope other technologies like ours can follow, right?

We're the leader of this, but we extract the value. And for a state where aviation is not convenience but a lifestyle here, right, and jet fuel is close alone that justifies the investment, um, the infrastructure is here, right? You have Alaskan Railroad, You have Seward Coal Terminal, the military logistics, I can go on, coal plants, the interior, your river here. What is missing is the technology that it can extract more assets, and that's the fast gen technology. And Alaska is the consumers of all of this.

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you being here today. We're going to look forward to having you come again and give us updates. But really appreciate you. Thank you so much, Andrea.

Awesome. Thank you, Julie. Thank you for the conference for inviting me. And I'll be around for any questions. Great.

Thank you. Thank you.

Again, thank you guys. Uh, can we give Andrea a big round of applause and thank you for joining us? Really appreciate the conversation.

Our next conversation turns to one of the most significant energy infrastructure opportunities in Alaska's history, the future of Alaska LNG. As global demand for reliable energy continues to grow, Alaska remains uniquely positioned to play a strategic role in supplying natural gas to domestic and international markets while creating long-term economic opportunities right here at home. In this fireside chat, we'll hear directly about what's next for the Alaska LNG Project, the path forward for development, and what successful delivery could mean for Alaskans' energy security, jobs, and the broader economy. Please welcome Governor Mike Dunleavy, joined by Brendan Duvall, founder and CEO of Glenfarn Group, for delivering for Alaskans what's next for AK LNG.

Aki Kuroda: Well, good morning, everybody. And it's good to be back in Anchorage for a day or two. Been doing a lot of work down in Juneau. I don't know if you've ever heard of Juneau. It's our capital for a great state.

But in any event, all the feedback we're getting, it's been a great conference. I'm glad all of you are here. So many different topics. So many different things happening in Alaska. So much support for a lot of the stuff that's happening in Alaska through the federal government, through the state government, and just the geopolitical world right now, what's happening across the world.

You know, we're all looking for where do you want to put investment, why do you want to put investment there, is it going to have a return, etc., etc. And I think what you're learning is that Alaska is, is really an intriguing— not just an intriguing bet, but really a place to seriously consider. And the conversations I've had already just this morning is, to me, it's really exciting. America's going to be the place to invest. It's going to be the place to invest for some time.

More investments coming to America than the traditional places like Europe, even Asia, is coming here into the United States thanks to what the Trump administration is doing and the work that we're also doing up here in the state. But one of the biggest projects amongst the many that are being represented here at this conference, of course, is our Alaska LNG project. This has been something that's been talked about for decades and decades and decades. When the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline first was completed in the late '70s and was producing oil, immediately people were pivoting to, what do we do with the enormous amounts of gas? Because if you remember, our first oil play was actually just out the window here in Cook Inlet in the 1950s.

'60S. And there was so much gas that that was one of the reasons why there was an LNG export concept that was developed, because you got to remember the rest of the United States was not exporting LNG at that time. We were trying to import and get as much LNG as— excuse me, gas— as possible. In any event, in the late '60s, the port was developed and we were shipping LNG to to Tokyo, to Japan for 50 straight years uninterrupted. We didn't realize then how much, how important that's going to be here today.

And then of course we had one of the largest fertilizer plants also next to the LNG export plant to just monetize that enormous amount of gas that was there. Well, that gas is diminishing rapidly, but we've always known we've had enormous, enormous trillions and trillions of cubic feet of gas on the North Slope. And it's, it's gas that we've recycled. We know the content of that gas. We know how much gas is there.

And so the discussions about an LNG project have always been there. The high cost in Alaska is an issue, right? We— this is not Texas. There's no interstates. You don't have a lot of labor pools that can just drive 40 miles down the road and begin a new project.

And Texas is very fortunate, Louisiana, other states in the lower 48. We are basically a county population-wise at the top of the world. We're the second largest discontinuous part of a nation on the planet. Greenland, then us. And so you have to ship things up here.

Costs money. You have to do man camps up here. We're going to talk about some of this in just a moment. Costs money. So what we're trying to do right now in Juneau is rearrange our tax bill, our tax statutes, which I think we're going to get to here shortly.

It's just taking a lot longer because this is an enormous project. But in the end, our proximity to Asia, the data farm revolution, what's happening in the Persian Gulf, people thinking about where are we going to put our— what are we going to do now for fertilizer, not just oil and gas, fertilizer. What about our petrochemical industry? What about aluminum, et cetera, et cetera? It's all going to depend on long-term, low-cost energy such as gas.

And so, We're going to have a great conversation here with Brendan because we came— I don't think we can get into the details of how we met and how we talked about this project. But there have been a lot of tire kickers on this project over the years, concerned about the cost, concerned about the cost, understandably. And the pipe is the biggest cost factor that's questionable as to what the cost is going to be. And we'll talk about this. But in any event, this project went last year from discussion It's gone from concept to discussion to now execution.

This is how far this project has gone in such a short period of time. President Trump views this as, if not his top project, certainly one of the top, top projects that's on his agenda for very good reasons for Asian allies, for America, for Alaska's security. It was just announced a couple week, a week or two ago that several billion, with a B, dollars are going to be invested in our bases up here. For national security. That's just the beginning.

And you've seen this, what's happened here in the conference and the discussions as to what's going on. So Alaska is one of the hottest places now on the planet. And Glen Farn, under the leadership of Brendan, got involved early on in discussions with myself. And I want to— I'm going to start— I'm going to go and give him the opportunity to talk about it. So Brendan, we first met, it seems like yesterday, and sometimes it seems like years ago, but we met in Houston during Sierra Week in your office.

You became interested in the project. It was a huge project, and we talked about phasing it out to make it more digestible for, uh, for, for those that are investors, risk-taking, etc. Things have rapidly changed since then. Russian-Ukraine war is still ongoing, and then the Persian Gulf, data farms like I mentioned. Where do you see the project now as we talked about gone from theory to maybe a concept to now execution.

Where do you see the project now, and if you can explain in detail, to the extent you can, all the facets of it that are moving forward? Well, maybe I can take a step back to answer that question. But for us, the— your leadership and your team, your commissioners, the state employees, and then throughout the whole of the state The level of support and leaning in for us has been outstanding. And so I just wanted to thank you for that. Without someone like you leaning in, we wouldn't have taken on something like this.

And that— then that goes further to the members of Cabinet in President Trump's White House and the President himself. When you're doing a project of this scale, the leadership at the White House, at the State, at the borough level here, all the mayors. It's really been fantastic. So I just want to thank Governor Dunleavy, and if we give him a round of applause for that support, and his whole team.

So when we look at this project, we started talking at about roughly 2 years ago. We had a bit of a dating game for nearly 9 months. Because I had to do a lot of work to figure out why Exxon hadn't done the project, why Conoco, BP, Hillcorp, a lot of these household names, and ultimately we're a company that focuses on old-fashioned fundamental principles and not looking at newspapers or other reports that other people have put together for their own advice, and so it took a while to get into the underpinning principles, and I'll go through some of those simple principles here shortly. We then entered into a letter of intent late 2024, and then we ultimately executed a purchase agreement to buy 75% of the company. The state, through AGDC, owns the other 25% in March, uh, 2025.

So we've been in it for about a year, and when I did the opening remarks, I met this audience about a year ago. And so the dynamics for the project have just continued to get better and better and better, and I wish I said a lot of that I had influence over, but the project has just improved independent of our involvement along the way. So when the White House shifted that pro-energy— the Energy Dominance Council came into being, even just as we were negotiating our purchase agreement, the focus on energy, the allies focusing on US LNG increased, and then ultimately that focus went to a pinnacle moment with the weakness of supply coming out of the Straits of Hormuz. And so the global macro environment, you could never imagine, so I went through the lining up of the regional level, the state level, the federal level, and global geo-macro geopolitical politics, couldn't make it any better. So that's fortunate, but really the underpinning of the project and why it works existed even before this.

Most of their permits here came through under the Biden White House, just about every single one of them. So I often get asked, well, what happens if the White House changes? And I said, well, we'll be back to the type of leadership that we had before that, and we got our permits then. So when you've got a project like this, it's very comforting to me that both sides of the aisle have been supportive of this project in Alaska in a more recent history. It may be earlier, not.

So then we look at what's happened over the last 12 months. And if you remember, I might have walked you through the simple math that I did when I figured out this project works. When you look at the feed gas on the North Slope being stranded gas, and most of you probably know the amount of gas that's being reinjected up on the North Slope, 8 Bcf a day, would be enough to build 2.5 projects of this scale, so there is a lot of gas being reinjected. So when you look at the, the value of that stranded gas and you compare it to the gas in the lower 48, it's much more cost effective. And when you look at the shipping cost into North Asia, those Asian buyers are comparing to other US LNG.

And for those who don't know, Gulf Coast LNG used to go through the Panama Canal. There's so much congestion there, and it's managed through fresh water to get the height of the dam up and down for that canal to work. LNG carriers don't go through the canal now, so they go around under Africa, under India, and around to Asia. So we've got about a third of the shipping cost. And when you look at the feed gas cost and the shipping cost, we've got a tremendous economic advantage to start with.

And that was what got me comfortable this project would work. But you may remember I was saying the last thing for me to find out is what does it cost to build the pipeline? And we immediately started bidding out the construction. Worley, our engineering firm, went to all the largest contractors in the state and globally and in the US. We got bids in for the construction, we got bids in for the pipe supply, we put together a detailed logistics plan for laying out the construction, and now we know what it costs to build.

So once you know that what the pipeline costs to build, you know the advantages you've got you actually have an economic project. And so what I can say, and I said that at the start of the conference, this project now we have all the financial inputs that make us understand it works. And importantly, the underpinning of a domestic solution here for the gas crisis where we build the pipeline first, solve the gas crisis in the Cook Inlet, and then have a second financing at a later date for the export, All of that now is an extremely clear and laid out financial plan, and we can talk a little bit about that in a minute here, but this project now has all the diligence, the underpinning to get ready to build it, and we've got a few things to do, but we're ready to go. Yeah, no, thank you. Just a slight correction, the permits were had under Trump One.

Under the Biden administration, they didn't try and kill the project. As a matter of fact, their FERC fought on our behalf on some court cases. So, but in any event, you know, people have heard about this project forever. This project, this project forever. But this project needs to be defined.

They heard about monetizing gas from Alaska, but this project is very different. We didn't have the permits prior to 2020. We didn't want to take those BTUs in terms of gas off the slope. Up before then because it was helping to some degree with the more lucrative product called oil. And then when you get all of the geopolitical stuff that's changing the world, and then you get Trump 2.0 in here, and data farms, and cryptocurrency, and electrification, it's a different project.

It's a different project. So the other thing that's happened that makes this a different project is we're running out of gas in the very inlet in which we pioneered LNG export. Right out the window here. We're running out of gas. We have for some time.

The plants have closed down. The first plant closed down in about 2007. We've— the export and the fertilizer plant were shut down in the mid-2015, '17. And then what we're experiencing in this— you've noticed out the window, we have a very cold spring. Normally we'd be in summer right now.

We've had a very cold spring. We had a cold winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, record cold temperatures. Record cold temperature here in March, I believe, and record snows in January. What does that mean? What's left in the inlet, we're really drawing that down, and that's a problem when you have sophisticated military bases.

This is another consideration that the Trump administration knows and that we talked about. Very sophisticated military installations that are forward-leaning because of the adversarial world we live in here in the Northwest. They need gas, they need energy, so very different project. But I would ask, Brendan, tell us about another, you know, the execution part. What are some of the partners that are very interested in this project?

Where are we on the partner side of things and just growing that group of focus of investors, partners, builders, etc.? Well, I think one of our most important partners right now is Enstar, your local gas utility, and we've had to come up with an arrangement with Enstar that shows you and everyone that we can deliver gas from the North Slope that's more reliable and more cost-effective than importing LNG, and we're putting the finishing touches on an ability to offer you all here in your homes gas that we can have locked in coming from the North Slope that is better than financially and from a sustainable supply standpoint than importing LNG. So Enstar and ourselves and the CEO John Sims and myself, we're about to put finishing touches on, on that agreement so it can go through the RCA, and then off the back of that we can go into a financial close, and we're just very, very close to finishing that off. So that's one of the important partners for Phase 1. The other important partners for Phase 1, including John, we did a big gathering here on Monday, and we had roughly 50 local, national, and global presidents and CEOs that are committing billions of dollars of risk, loans, equity investment, construction guarantees, equipment guarantees, and we went down to the Kenai Peninsula, we did a roundtable, and some of those are here today, you know, you might have seen some of the press releases, but Baker Hughes, one of our equipment suppliers, they've become an investor.

A big shipping company we're going to do an LNG joint venture with, DANAOS out of Greece, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, they're an investor. POSCO, our Korean partners that are supplying a specialized type of steel, they're an investor. They've committed to the project. Many of our construction companies have also committed to investing in the project. We've listed out a lot of those companies.

They're putting up billions of dollars of their balance sheet to take this. So 50 of them were here sitting, the governor and Secretary Burgum, went around and listened to why they were involved in the projects, any concerns they needed, and off the back of that, I had a dinner the following night with the leading global project finance banks in the world, and those banks have given me proposals on terms and conditions that allow me to say I can make a final investment decision here once we finish up some of these agreements, possibly this tax bill out of Juneau, and they were all here as well listening, and they left even more enthusiastic than when they came, because there's nothing like doing a site visit, seeing the enthusiasm and all the stakeholder engagement here. So I can confirm I've received enough proposals of private financing on terms and conditions that once we convert that into long-form documentation, we can build the domestic pipeline, and that's very exciting. And so we talked a little bit about this. Here we go.

You know, just to add to this, and again, the geopolitical aspect of— and we started this before the Persian Gulf War. We were talking about how viable this was before the Gulf has taken off. But if you look at the Gulf right now, and we want nothing but the best for our friends in the Gulf, tremendous allies and friends in the Gulf, forward-leaning countries. Whether it's the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. Um, but they're trying to figure out what the world's going to look like.

And, and as I mentioned earlier, when I spoke just a day or two ago, you know, the question was always, uh, can we shave a penny off? You know, which matters when you're dealing with billions of dollars and tons of gas. Can we shave 5 cents off? And oftentimes, you know, that led to one of the largest gas fields— the largest gas field on the planet, planet, Qatar and over in the Persian Gulf. But now the questions that are coming out of investment houses and utilities and so forth is, can we be assured of supply?

And what is the premium, if anything, put on assurance of supply? So remember, we hope the conflict gets settled soon. It'll be good for everybody. It'll be good for the world. But when you look at alternatives, do we, do we send gas across pipelines to the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf states?

That costs money. That's going in a different direction. Do you try and ship your gas then down through the Red Sea? You got a problem with a group down there, the Houthis. That's an issue.

And you're going around the peninsula then. But then when you look at Alaska, it's not 25 days. It's not 30 days. It's not 16 days. It's 8 days to Tokyo Bay in uncontested waters where you got the 7th Fleet of the US Navy and the 3rd Fleet in the North Pacific of the US Navy.

No straits to go through, no canals to go through. You don't have to ask anyone permission to go through. The moment you leave Nakiski, Alaska, which is probably by air only about 30 miles south of here, 40 miles south, you are clear sailing right into Tokyo Bay. That's a surety. That's security, that's certainty, and those discussions are also buoying this project.

Do you want to talk a little bit about that when you're having discussions with folks? So albeit this is a two-phased financing and a two-phased construction, so we've let everyone know construction on the export portion, which is a separate financing, That's about a year behind the actual pipeline construction. Notwithstanding that, we've had tremendous interest in the buying of the LNG from that facility and we're still a year away from launching the construction.

And so when you do a facility like this, it's— there's 20 million tonnes of LNG. That is a really big LNG facility. To finance it, you want to have stable cash flows for the bulk of the contracts, so we go and enter into 20-year contracts for roughly 80% of the revenue, which is about 16 million tonnes. And I can tell you today, I know where every one of those tonnes is going to be, and 80% of the 80% we've already publicly announced. And so the first 6 million tonnes is going to Taiwan and and that was announced actually when we were here last time, 2 million tonnes to Thailand, another 2 million tonnes to Japan, the two biggest buyers out of Japan, JERA and Tokyo Gas, a million tonnes to Korea with POSCO, 2 million tonnes to the global French champion for LNG, Total, and then we have another customer we haven't announced yet that we've negotiated all the pricing on, and our company will take 1 million tonnes.

So that gets us— we know where all of our LNG is going now, and that's amazing for a project that is still a year from taking construction. Why is that? To the Governor's point, most of those LOIs were announced and reservation agreements were announced before the Straits of Amur event. Actually, All of them, all of them. Now I think people were saying this is an important location to take LNG.

The important part now is everyone is accelerating how do they move from their reservation agreement to a binding long-term contract because their boards of directors, their national energy councils, their ministers and secretaries for energy, when they go to them for approval or their board of directors, their approvals are coming faster and quicker than they would have if that highlighted, uh, uh, problem of LNG being locked in the Strait. And so that just accelerates negotiations that often can just drag out and out and out. And then it also gives our lenders confidence when they start doing all the studies that the contracts will show up, because it takes a long time for a lender or an investor to study a project like this. So they've got even more confidence to put all the effort in to get their approvals. So it's just reinforced and highlighted what attracted everyone here, and it's just made it so much easier for everyone to go and get their approvals.

So from your perspective, what are the next steps? We're confident that our work in Juneau will provide an environment for investment, larger investments, more long-term investments in the project, and we should hopefully hammer that out here pretty soon. But what do you see are the next steps? What do you see happening? You come back here next year, what would you be telling the audience when things progress through the various steps?

So right now, these financing proposals that are in a— the pricing of the financing and the terms and conditions, they are subject to a couple of key things. One, a form of this tax abatement stabilization arrangement that is being negotiated in Juneau. That's a critical condition. Another condition is the RCA approving the NSTAR agreement that at some point in time we'll have to file. With those two key milestones, I expect to be happening here in the very near future, We can then go into documenting those loans and getting all of our construction contractors actually in mobilization phase.

And what we've asked our contractors to be ready for is to be having their equipment up on the slope and, and on the right-of-way in Q1 of this next year, in 2027, to have construction seasons going through '27 and '28 and have commissioning in '29 so we can deliver gas here through the pipeline late in 2029. And so the next steps are to really focus on getting these two conditions behind us, putting all of— every single agreement we have goes from like a 5-page key terms and conditions, and then they have to be converted to a couple of hundred page documents. And we're doing that now with all of our gas suppliers. One, one thing to remind everyone, and we were very pleased we got to our final details with Conoco. And we had announced earlier in the year Exxon and Hillcorp and Pantheon have also agreed to gas supply.

So we're going through turning those into what are called precedent gas supply agreements into long-form contracts. But we've got enough agreements from the North Slope now to make our final investment decision. So they're all going into their contractual long-form conversion. And then we have some other customers in the state here beyond NStar, some of the electric utilities we're working with to try and put a final agreement together. We believe there's an opportunity to restart the fertiliser plant, and I was in the North Slope with our lenders explaining that to them.

We also believe there's an opportunity to use the old LNG facility. With a little bit of maintenance, it can be restarted. Once we announce the pipeline construction is starting, the number of mining operations in this state that could use gas instead of barging or driving diesel around is phenomenal. So there's a whole second category or wave of smaller customers including mines that can come, but many of them we have to focus on the biggest customers to draw the financing against. So over the next 90 days, 120 days, so long as there's not too many of the governmental approvals here coming up, we'll be going through a 90 to 120 day documentation period with our lenders and investors and hopefully announce a final investment decision here as soon as possible because we want to get that construction going and ordering pipe.

You know, it's— I always am amazed at the size of this project, right? This would be the largest project ever in the Arctic. This— and depending on how you define size or, you know, how large— largest project in the Pacific. And from a construction funding perspective, most likely the largest project, single project ever on the planet here in America, here in Alaska, serving our in-state customers but serving a wider group of customers, our Asian allies, and potentially, if necessary, West Coast of the United States. And the projection, the runway for producing gas— I'll give you an example.

TAPS, the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, which nobody thought would be built, which only was built with a tie-breaking vote through an act of Congress. And that tie-breaking vote was by Spiro Agnew, the Vice President of the United States. Without that vote, we would not have had the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. The state would not look the same. The country would not look the same.

This came in during the Arab oil embargoes. The North Sea came in at the same time. This super giant came in at the same time. You saw earlier when these fine gentlemen from EPOC did their presentation, there's about $18 billion worth of oil on the North Slope that's still recoverable and that they're shooting for. This is the hottest place on the planet right now for oil and gas, critical minerals, and other resource development.

But nothing's ever a given. A lot of this policy, and like we mentioned, we're working on this tax policy in Juneau, But this project is enormous. The benefits to the country, to the world, are enormous. The benefits to us in Alaska— the difference is, if the project were not to happen, which we are confident is going to, we would have to import gas. We would have to import gas at ever-increasing costs for our in-state customers and utilities.

Well, that, that would be a death knell for business coming to Alaska, especially if you're looking at $16 a unit gas or higher. And so what this project would do for us, because 500,000 people on what we refer to as the rail belt between Fairbanks, Anchorage, and where the gas would be exported, um, we're an afterthought. I mean, we're so small. But that enormous amount of gas would enable us to get incredibly low prices, relatively speaking, here in-state in Alaska, which would reduce, as opposed to what's happening in other parts of the country, reduce the cost of energy for Alaskans. For the long term.

You know, we got about a minute and 40 seconds left, Brandon, and I want to give this time to you to just opine on, you know, where you think this is going, what you want people to think about, because I am confident— and the next year at this time, and I'll be in the audience next year at this time, you'll be up here with somebody else— but I am confident that between now and then, some significant announcements are going to be made. But Take the time. I think the most important thing is I made a commitment to the governor, and I've also made a commitment implicitly to all of you, to offer you domestic stable gas at a price that is better than imported LNG, and then dropping that down to a price that's competitive to the lower 48 gas by building this pipeline. So I urge you to get behind the pipeline because it will give you gas supply uncertainty, better than imported LNG, and then when we build the export facility, we can offer it at a third the cost of that, and then you've got gas here that's comparable to the lower 48. So please talk to your mayors, your elected officials, your legislators, your community leaders, your union leaders, and get them behind any rally here to call to arms.

Let's get this thing over the line. And we can get this state the gas that it needs. Right now this is an Alaska solution project. That's all we're focused on, solving the gas needs for Alaska. Phase 2 is the international portion of it, but for me right now my job is to get you guys gas so that when that Cook Inlet isn't producing enough for the winter here, you can pull it off the pipeline with certainty, with absolute abundance, and it's guaranteed to be delivered for 30, 40, 50 years.

And that's the most important thing right now— better than imported LNG, moving to gas that's comparable with the Lower 48. And that's what we're here to get done. And hopefully, with a few final approvals here, we can announce that construction project starting later this year. This will be the most transformational generational project this part of the world has ever seen. So Brendan, thank you for everything you're doing.

Thank you, Governor. Thank you, everyone.

Last year I took a picture of myself sitting in the governor's special chair, and the feet on that chair are like this. All I asked for was one chair that would fit me, and they made the chairs for her. But anyway, I'm winning. When I first started, the governor had a great idea, one of the cabinet meetings, and said something about how we needed to get more fit and we should walk and talk. And I couldn't help it.

I was brand new, so I'm not supposed to laugh openly at my boss. But I busted out laughing because I was trying to think of what that visual would look like in Juneau as the governor and I are walking and talking around downtown Juneau. Getting our exercise, I would be sprinting, or at least a sad jog compared to his walk. So thankfully we've moved on to other bigger and better ideas. But a round of applause, please, for the governor, who's been a tremendous leader, and Brandon Duvall.

As the Commissioner of Commerce, you know, over the last 5 years, it's been so interesting, the conversations with the governor. I used to be all about How do we draw business to Alaska? How do we get more people to understand the value and the resources that we have in Alaska? And truly, the transformation over these 5 years has been so satisfying and exciting because there is so much attention on Alaska. There are so many people like the people here in this room who understand the resources that Alaska has to offer.

And the governor has done a tremendous job of helping us also get to the point of recognizing those resources are worth nothing to us unless we're able to monetize and develop those resources. We're very excited about our partnership with Glenfarm and all— for me, as the Commissioner of Commerce, all that comes with that economic development. So often we're asked about or told about the need for services all over the state, and those are real critical services. And the question then comes How do we pay for those services? So I can't help but get really excited about this project.

Folks are asking me throughout the conference, what do we do and how can we help? And I've just been letting them know, you know, the governor has called for a special session. We are hopeful that the legislators will hear the interests of Alaskans that they're here to represent. So I've just encouraged folks to be able to, you know, reach out to your legislators if you're in support of the project and let them know, what your opinion is. So we're going to take a— our breakout sessions are going to begin at 11:15.

So be sure to check the conference app for session details and room assignments. And again,.