Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance — June 4, 2026 1:30pm

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Finance Committee to order. We're continuing to have a presentation by AGDC. We left off on slide 20 developer scorecards. Mr. Richards, please come continue with your presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the record, Frank Richards with the Alaska Gas Line Development Corporation moving on to slide 21. This was really just to provide an insight into the support that AGDC, through not only our technical but our commercial expertise are able to provide to the project. And so again we had management systems that we had built up when we had 100% ownership of the project and we were able to transfer those management systems over to Glenn Farm and then with that also be able to provide them personal expertise as they march forward through the feed level of effort on the pipeline we had done. We had previously completed a feed level effort on the Alaska standalone pipeline project. And so we were able to leverage a lot of that work into the feed for the phase one of the project.

In addition, we have considerable commercial experience that we had developed through our years in working to move the project forward and that includes a long standing number of relationships with the Asian markets and buyers of lng. So we continue to participate in those roles, but also in coordinating the outreach that we have with Alaska stakeholders, including interfaces with the Alaska Native Corporations. And as a department of the or as a corporation of the state, we also then have that responsibility for communicating and aligning with the key state departments as well as other corporations such as the Alaska Railroad, ADA and some sidebar conversations with the Alaska Permanent Fund. So we discussed previously around again the confidentiality provisions that have been in various versions of the bill and we felt that it would be that those would be challenging for us in terms of continuing to work in that role to assist in the development of the Alaska LNG project. As we discussed this morning around the trust and the transparency that we have in working with the developer on the equity option position, I'm going to ask Mr. Kissinger to present.

Matt Kissinger, for the record, we've talked about this quite a bit. AGDC has reserved the right to additionally invest directly into each of the sub projects at 5 to 25% of each equity raise that there is within those sub projects. Like we said, this is a contractual option, not an obligation. There's no catch to it. It is simply whether the state wishes to invest between 5 and 25%.

And any of that 25% not taken by appropriation through the legislature will then also be offered to individual Alaskans, Alaskan companies, et cetera. And we're working on a program that does that as well. Mr. Chairman, Frank Richards, for the record, I would say that again, what's important is that the equity participation is an option, but it will be on the same terms as other equity investors. So no premium, no disadvantage being provided to AGDC for coming in under these preemptive rights.

Mr. Stood, yeah, just as mentioned earlier this morning, there's a risk difference between the phase one and phase two. So I would just again remind AGDC that there's significant risk exposure to this project and it's the looks like the highest and hardest hurdle of the three entities, the liquefaction plant, the conditioning plant and the pipe. The pipe being the most critical to move the project forward and also looks like it has the most risk in it. And I just think that you should take that into consideration when you consider making recommendations because we don't necessarily have to invest in all three or any three.

And. We're a state, we're not an investment company and we won't be the one blocking the construction of the project by us not being an equity investor through the chair. Senator Steadman, you're correct that again the information that we will be providing back to the state of Alaska on the investment option will include the risk profiles for the individual sub projects, in this particular case the pipeline project. And so it'll be an identification of the risk and reward for those investors. It will be contingent on.

We will share the information again with the legislature and with other Alaskans who have the desire to invest. But it will be after already the considerations have been made by other major institutional large scale investors who have made again a determination to invest. So that hopefully will provide some level of detail as well as insight then to Alaskan investors on whether or not it is prudent and it meets the risk profile that they are willing to invest in. Senator Stedman, just as a reminder, I think, Mr. Chairman, several years ago we hired a consultant to take a look at what hurdles would have to be dealt with to issue securities and the definition of securities to the people of the state. So that work was done by LBNA and that was under the previous leadership of agdc.

So that is available for review and updating much like we did Pegasus here a couple of days ago. So there is some complications and issues that we all need to be aware of when that time comes. You said our steadman, please proceed, Mr. Chairman, again to Senator Sedman's identification of previous work that would be really helpful for us to be able to see again around what your consultants provided to you in regards to the investment and the filings necessary to do that. AGDC will be preparing and putting forward again a prospectus then that has to consider.

Then what are the limitations or the making sure that we are meeting all the regulatory requirements for prudent investors? Senator STEDMAN yes, we can make sure that's available. I think it should be easy to attain because there was a concern under the previous leadership at AGDC several years ago that there would have been numerous breaches of federal laws and would have created a lot of complications and frankly, jail time. It was pretty alarming when we had that discussion, but we can make sure that they have that. Thank you.

Senator Stidman, please proceed. This is Matt Kissinger for the record. So again, just to describe these these are preemptive rights. They're retroactive rights that get exercised once we achieve fid. So all the other investors come to the table.

Think the global infrastructure funds, retirement funds, pension funds, et cetera, they come to the table, they fill out the whole book of how much equity needs to be raised, and then they have to wait. They have to wait up to six months while we make a decision of whether we're going to back in and push them out of 25% of their investment, which is a real disadvantage to those investors. They have to tie up that capital with a slight bit of uncertainty. And this is why the six months, because people have asked us why not longer than six months? This is really one of those reasons.

And again, this goes back to Senator Kiel's question earlier. Why the limit of 5%? Because this is a meaningful transaction to push people out of their committed investment. And so the desire was to have it be at least a meaningful amount. And 5% was what was negotiated.

Senator Rick Mr. Chairman, thank you again.

To address Senator Steadman's question about interface with other state corporations and the opportunities that is one of the right the rights that we have retained in that option that again, we'll present it to the legislature, but the opportunities then will be available for other state corporations should they have the capital and this meets their risk profile for investment. Senator STEDMAN thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think a couple of us have asked the chairman to review that language to ensure that there is review from the legislature on those activities if that was to take place.

And I've mentioned before, we got the railroad, we've got Alaska Industrial Development Authority, and we have the permanent fund, all with either substantial amount of bonding authority and or billions in cash, hundreds of millions if not in billions in liquid assets. So there is a concern there. So we've asked for that review. But I got one other just quick question. Mr. Chairman, back up.

Excuse me, Earlier comment made by Mr. Richards. I think I'd like him to restate it and clarify it so we all understand. And that's the earlier language in the controlling language of AGDC dealing with property tax during construction. I think it was stated that that was in the language we gave up that right for issuing property tax during the construction of the gas line and on the facilities, I guess. Is that correct or I just want to make sure that we all understand.

What's going on through the chair, Senator Steadman. Correct. And I forget the exact statute title, but it was that if a project, a gas line or a project that AGDC either owned or was a participant in that the oil and gas property taxes under 4356 would be deferred during construction or would not be, would not be required to pay during construction. Okay. And Mr. Chairman, we can maybe get that dug out.

So everybody's kind of refreshed on the historic history of that and the language when we talk about the policy that we're going to put on the table so we don't do redundancy or there's no misunderstanding. There's no misunderstanding. I think the tax holiday should be monetized so we know what we gave up already. So just for the committee's information, please proceed. Matt Kissinger, for the record, in these next two slides, I'm just going to walk through sort of step by step how this dilution effect and the raising of capital works.

First, I'd like to talk about the carry because we talk about AGDC's carry. If you refer to an earlier slide in the 2023 President's report that Frank gave to the AGDC board, we set out the goal of this transfer to a developer and in that we wanted to be carried through to fid and we've achieved that. That's a non dilutable, non changing thing. We do not have to pay any development cost through to FID at this point in time. After fid, Eight Star Alaska, who owns all of Eight Star Pipeline LLC right now, will have divested of probably a very large portion of eight Star Pipeline, but they will retain some of that.

That retained equity will have distributions when there is cash flow into eight Star Pipeline. So cash will flow into eight Star Pipeline during operations and Eight Star Pipeline will distribute to its owners, which will include other investors that come in, potentially us through our equity option. But it will also flow up to 8 star Alaska through any retained interest. And AGDC will always get 25% of anything that goes into eight star Alaska. Just getting back to this slide.

To start out with you issue your debt because this is project financed equity comes after the debt. In this example we've said 70% gets funded by debt. So for a 15 and a half billion dollar, and that number by the way is just a placeholder in this as these numbers have moved through the week, $15.5 billion pipeline, 70% funded by debt, really simplifying this and ignoring things like interest during construction, et cetera, that's 10.85 funded by debt. You need equity of 4.65. And so 8 star Alaska will then go out to the equity market to raise that 4.65 and what they will have to exchange for that is equity in eight Star pipeline.

It's been questioned, why would anyone just not say I want 100% if I'm going to bring in all the capital. But you have to understand eight Star Alaska is bringing the permits, the right of way, the engineering, the contracts for the gas, the contracts for the downstream sales of that gas, which then leads to all the credit worthiness of the project, the financing of the project, the debt that we just talked about and all the construction contracts. So that's what they would be bringing to the table. And this is a very normal course of action between developers and investors as you transition from pre fid final investment decision and then through a final investment decision. I don't want to shy away from the fact that we could be fully diluted even it's possible.

And this was always what we considered the sort of icing on the cake. We do not include any of these developer economics in the department of Revenue Analysis. We don't include it in any of our own. But it is there and it is the reward that Glenfarn gets from the project. So Glenfarn enjoys 75% of that carried developer economics.

And this means we're 100% aligned with Glenfarn going through this process. Glenfarn's going to fight like mad to ensure the least amount of dilution of eight Star Alaska's ownership in eight Star pipeline as you go through that process. And then we just benefit by taking 25% of what they retain.

Let's see.

Yeah, on this slide, Sorry, we've used 65% and 35% as the example. So in this example, Eight Star Alaska retains 35% and 65% of Eight Star Pipeline is issued to these other investors. Once that happens, we have our six months to then back into that 65% and we can go to the next slide. Before we proceed to that, we have a question from Senator Steadman. Yeah, just a question to help me for clarity.

On the financing, there was interest through construction. So on this project, would there be construction loans and then long term financing or is it just one financial package that takes you through construction and through, you know, the 20 year life or 30 year life, whatever the terms are of the loan? Yeah, can you help me with that, just so I understand the mechanism? Yes, absolutely. Senator Steadman, through the chair.

If it's just a pure construction loan, you have to have sponsor guarantees for that in case of default. Because this is project finance. There is no pure construction loan. There is the loan that lasts through construction, but then has a tenor, usually in line with your LNG sales contracts or for the phase one, your in state sales contract. So 30 year loans.

Now these after fi or after you complete the project, these often get refinanced for lower rates. But when you first set them, you have to set them for the term of the revenue stream, because it's that revenue stream that the banks actually have recourse to, not to any parent company or sponsor's balance sheets. Senator Stanton. And then so the construction period is five years, three years. What are we looking for for this interest accumulation that we're going to have to deal with along with capital costs?

Yeah, Senator Steadman, through the chair, for the pipeline, roughly three years of construction. And for the LNG plant, gtp. More like five years of construction. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Further questions on slide number 24. Please proceed. All right,.

So here's where we talk about how that back end right works. So in this example I've shown, AGDC elects to exercise its full 25% ownership option. So the 65% that the other investors selected or was issued to the other investors, we can back into 25% of that. So that's 16.25% of the total ownership of the project that we'd have direct. We still have our 25% of the carried 35% interest, which is another 8.75.

And you'll see that 16.25 and 8.75 add up to 25%. So in fact, what's been preserved is the right to always have 25% of the total project, should we want to. The question is always just going to be how much of that has to be paid and how much of that ends up being carried? And of course, like I mentioned before on the carried amount, we're perfectly aligned with Glenn Farn to try and achieve the highest amount there.

Mr. Chairman, if I may to add on to that, the key distinction we were trying to also reflect in this was that of the 65% equity that Glenn Farm would raise, that would be direct ownership. If we elected to take 25%. So that's direct ownership in the eight star pipeline and then the retained interest in the 35% is an indirect ownership stake. So no more money required for that. So that's where the consideration is.

How much is Glenn Farm going to be able to retain in ownership rights after while they're going through this equity race? In this example we've identified 35%. It could be 25%, it could be 10%, it could be zero. So that's the issue that we've talked about in terms of the dilution. If Glenn Farm is not able to have a retention and seeks outside investment to come in to be able to cover the cost of the project, then we would only have those developer economics that Matt talked about.

That is again where we feel we're aligned because we know that Glenn Farm will want to have some retention of equity position as they raise capital for this. So if Glen Farm is able to do that, AGDC will have 25% of that ownership.

Questions.

Regarding the $15.5 million required for the pipeline, is it crucial that all of that be secured before construction begins? I'm. I'm wondering if that is the case. Is that why you have the 160 days for Alaska to decide whether or not they want to participate? Senator Hoffman, Chair Hoffman.

You have to have all of that lined up at your final investment decision because you've lined up all that debt and the lenders will require that you have all that lined up at FID enough to construct the project along with the contingency and even some additional contingency for cost overrun risk usually.

Senator Kaufman, was there more? Sorry Mr. Chairman. Again the key point was as the debt and the equity must be determined prior to fid. It will not require AGDC or the State of Alaska to have made that equity decision at that time. That's where we've reserved the option to back in to 25% of the equity after FID.

Can you say that one more time?

To achieve FID, you'll need to have all your debt financing lined up. In this particular example, 10.85 billion of debt financing by the Banks, you also have to have raised equity capital, in this case about 4.65 billion. Once that 15.5 billion is secured, you then have the financing available to take final investment decision. What AGDC has reserved for the state and Alaskans is the opportunity after fidget to take up to 25% of the equity stake. And in this particular example we used the range of 5% or about 230 million up to 25% or about 1.16 billion.

If I may, Matt Kissinger for the record, during that 180 days, ideally we will kick off construction and be moving. But it's potential that these other investors who have the, you know, that have the potential to be preempted by us, that they're not going to want to expose themselves to too much risk during that 180 day period. And so it does behoove us to actually shorten that period, to be honest.

Senator Stedman.

So I understand the issue of putting a financial package together before you get basically the building permit to go build a project. Can the state go in early in the initial raising of funds and say hypothetically we want to take 25% interest in 8 Star Pipeline before fidget. Senator Steadman to come in after the fact. Senator Steadman, through the chair, we could attempt to invest at the same time as the other investors at find we could attempt to do that. The agreements provide for that to happen.

But we've always thought it was a huge advantage for us to be able to have that 180 day preemptive right to give us the assurance that the other investors are there to see the quality of those investors and to look at the information after they've looked at it. Senator Steadman, I would agree with that. By the way. I think that's a good structure to have come in after the fact, not before the fact.

Further questions on slide number 24?

Well, not specifically on slide 24. When we get to general questions, I have a few things that have collected in my hopper. Questions on slide 24. Senator Merrick? Yes, thank you Chair Hoffman and thank you gentlemen for being here.

How much of the 30% equity has. Been already raised through the chair? Senator Merrick? Right now there has not been any, there has not been an equity raise. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Merrick, Senator keel, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kissinger, you, you said that we should expect as we, as we look at the price tag, to see a project contingency and perhaps an additional contingency for cost overruns. Can you give US a range of what those might be in percentage terms or dollar terms or whatever. I mean obviously the bankers. You said the banker's going to set that so you can't tell me what the number is.

But spitball Senator Kiel, through the chair. The one that we can give with some assurance or some certainty. There's still a huge range to it. But is the initial contingency would be roughly in line. We would expect it to be roughly in line with the accuracy of a Class 2 cost estimate, which would be plus 15%.

Senator Keel, that's helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, that's good. I'll hold off. Thank you. Senator Keel. Senator Stegman, this is a reminder for those looking at the slide the other day on cost that they need to add that 15% onto those numerics to get a better range of what we're actually looking at.

Because we're not left off or they were left off and then which is fine as long because we know that they were left off. But then cost overruns is in addition to that. That's correct. If there is cost overrun. The question on slide 24.

Senator Keel. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Since I'm asking ignorant questions, I may as well keep going. In the ideal world, our cost estimates were great, our contractors are phenomenal and we don't need that overrun allowance or maybe even the contingency allowance. But we did an equity raise for 30% of it.

Presumably what we borrowed we can give back to the lender. What do you do with the cash you got from equity investors that you didn't need? Senator Keel, through the chair. If you haven't used all of it? It can be dealt with in a number of ways.

One is to retire debt early. The other one is to be remitted back to the equity investors. Oftentimes, you know, this is given as a.

Not tranches, but sort of different packs of commitment. You know, your primary pack to build the project and your contingency pack and then you know, your cost overrun. And so these extra ones don't get tapped into until they're needed. So oftentimes they get retained by the equity investors if they're not utilized. Senator Keel, thank you.

So retained by the equity investors. I understand that you talked about using that money potentially to retire debt early. Does that. That changes the debt to equity ratio on the project in the end? Right.

So how does that impact tariff down the pipe? Senator Kiel through the chair. It shouldn't change your tariffs necessarily, but change your cost of supply for sure because you end up with a Higher cost of capital by doing that, which is why you probably wouldn't retire your debt early in an instance like a pipeline like that. Senator Keel. Thank you, Senator Kiel.

Further Questions, please continue.

Mr. Chairman. Again, Frank Richards. For the record, we Talked about Slide 25 and we went through it. So we are now at the end of our presentation. Further questions that committee members may have at this time, any questions that would come up later, please provide them to my staff, Pete Declan, and we'll get them to AGDC for response.

Senator Coffman, thank you.

Wondering if y' all have given any thought to the prerequisites in the, in the civil sector. So anticipating a project like this, when planning, designing a concept is front end loading, you're looking at everything that you need to know and goes back to prior discussions we had at the table about the stage gate process and all that. In your stage gates, do you have a strong consideration of what we might need to do do in the civil sector to be ready for some of these things? The front end loading of that? Perhaps there's some infrastructure that is not up to grade for what we need to do.

And so how that private sector, civil sector, how we link those and be sure that that front end loading is in there so that we have consideration considering the admittedly slow process of, of a legislature to get ready for things, we have to have that on our radar as well. If we're looking at a capital budget, let's say, and how that may tie into what needs to happen through the chair. Senator Coffman, that's an excellent question and one that we have been in consultation with Glenn Farm considerably because in a former life I was out looking at the roads and the highways necessary to make sure that they were going to be in good enough condition for the this project. And I will say that DOT over the intervening years has done an excellent job of taking on those responsibilities to make sure that the bridges that were weight restricted are now capable of handling the loads that we anticipate for this project or the embankment or the pavements necessary to be able to assure that they're in good condition prior to the major infrastructure or transportation logistics that will be traversing over those. So I think that it will still be a negotiation between the state of Alaska and its infrastructure and ultimately what will need to occur after the construction.

But Glenn Farm is committed to working with DOT to do that. They'll look at the infrastructure, they'll likely do an assessment of the condition of the infrastructure beforehand and then look at it afterwards. Secondarily in looking at the needs of the civil, I'll call it civil service, necessary to be able to assure that the state of Alaska has the resources necessary to administer the permitting necessary for this. That's been a key consideration of the governor's review and making sure that his departments are standing ready to be able to address the concerns as they come forward, specifically in the regulatory arena. My concern, though, looking at what this project will do in terms of labor, is that we will have a significant major project that will be offering wages to people to work on the project that will potentially impact the Department of Transportation's Operations section.

You've got trained operators and mechanics that know the highway system and are capable of operating the equipment necessary to it, but they're not going to be at the pay scale comparable to what the operators are going to be at during construction. So that may be an impact, and that's something I'm concerned about. Senator Coffman, thank you. It sounds like it's a good time to learn how to drive a snowplow or a dump truck. The other question I had, and I think we have the commission coming in tomorrow, we're going to be talking about the supply of gas.

And in those. In the presentation today, you were mentioning sources of gas. I don't know. I think it was on slide 20, maybe. Slide number.

Yes, under the developer scorecard. And I just. I failed to ask that. So mentioned Pantheon, and I'm just wondering, has that. What's the status with AOG cc?

How's all that working? I think you actually have two sources that have been approved by them, but there's more than those two here. So just so that we touch on it now so that there's not something unanswered or left hanging tomorrow, I think it would be good to address Senator. Coffman through the chair. Actually, there are three sources that have AOGCC offtake authorizations.

There's Prudhoe Bay, Point Thompson, which we talk a lot about. But there's also North Central Star, actually, which we sort of forget about sometimes. But there's quite a bit of gas that was already in the North Star reservoir. And there's more gas that had been sent over to Northstar from the Prudhoe Bay reservoir during the operation of that field. When it comes to Great Bear Pantheon, there are several thresholds that still need to be met.

They have to achieve commercial commerciality in their wells. Then they have to take that to an fid, which is going to require permitting. And ultimately they'll have to form a pool and have pool rules established by the aogcc. So until that happens, there is no firm offtake capability from Great Bear pantheon. We do keep highlighting them because it is a tremendous amount of gas.

We did due diligence on it using a firm called Ryder Scott. It's a well known reservoir engineering firm and they established that the gas is there and really just again needs this commerciality needs to be approved. But it's very good quality gas is why we like it especially for phase one. To the extent that we can use it, it reduces our reliance on gas treatment on the North Slope so that we don't have to deal with a gas treatment plant to some degree or can build a smaller one. Senator Coffman, thank you.

And I guess will y' all be in the building or present tomorrow during the any of the testimony through the chair? Senator Coffin? We'll be online tomorrow. Okay, good. That'll be helpful.

And I guess the one other thing that I had is back on the, I forget which slide, but it was with respect to federal. We were talking about the incentives that could help make the project happen. And you talk about state considerations like we're doing with the tax reform to get off of an onerous property tax to a tax that's more calibrated for a project like this. And just wondering what our standing is right now with the application process or the vetting by any federal entity that might be able to help through grants or loan guarantees or whatever that process. We keep going back or at least I keep trying to go back to the what's that scorecard and how are we doing?

So how's that coming with the feds? Is there anything languishing there that needs. To move along through the chair? Senator Coffman, excuse me. There's a federal gag restriction.

Mr. Kissinger. Yeah. Senator Coffman, through the chair. So the DOE does have restrictions on how much we can say about the, the process with Department of Energy. And so we often point to the Secretary of Energy and his remarks.

But I think, you know, we all heard Mr. Prestige in here yesterday mentioning that they're focusing very much on private debt, at least for phase one at this point in time. Senator Coffman, Mr. Chairman to address. Senator Coffman, Frank Richards for the record again, but there are, there are conversations that Glenn Farm is having across the administration in D.C. about opportunities where the administration is looking to be able to support the project. So those are ongoing, I would say, daily conversations. And again, as late as last week when the secretaries were here in state engaging and having face to face conversations.

Senator Coffman, just wondering as we're considering if there's a piece of the puzzle at least in stasis right now or something. I hope we know if we do legislation just hope that we're informed enough about whatever that status might be so that we don't leave something out. And that goes back to kind of the general thread of the comments and questions that I've had is that with AGDC's role in this and the legislature's role, it's important that we get anything in this legislation we're working on that may need to strengthen or add the sideboards that will provide the protections on cost overruns, on cost of gas, on availability and if there's some element of federal involvement that we're missing, that may be a key piece of that and that may set a different floor for what we're doing doing. So I think to the extent that we can flesh that out and know what we're doing, you know, I think what was Rumsfeld talked about the unknown unknowns and the known unknowns. I think we've got a little bit of that that we're trying to sort through especially when it comes to making sure we get the right language in the bill that ultimately I hope goes across the floor and successfully enables the project.

Thank you. Thank you. Senator Coffman. Further questions on Alaska Gas Line Development Corporation's presentation. Senator keel, thank you.

Mr. Chairman. Since our colleague across the table brought up the civil engineering side of things, can you talk to us a little bit about the alignment on folks fixing the Dalton? If memory serves, at one point this session DOT said the Dalton highway is a couple hundred million dollars shy of work, shy of where it needs to be. 200. 200, I don't remember.

Is that something that is going to be state general fund match and federal highway dollars. Is there a contribution from the project? There's been discussion about the project helping to pay for some of these road this road work. Mr. Richards, through the chair. Senator Keel, again, what DOT has in the stip with the state Transportation Improvement Program is a considerable amount of projects on the Dalton Highway.

Those were planned and designed again to follow the federal program. The Federal Highway Administration program which would essentially use state match. What DOT and Glenn Farm or the HSTAR are in discussions are around the condition of the project when those projects are actually going to be executed, namely because you have to look at the cadence of pipeline construction. So if you have a major highway project that's being constructed and you want pipe traveling through that project, then you're impacting the cadence of the pipeline construction. So whether or not those projects are deferred a year or so, that is still to be decided and determined.

But also they talked about again, as I said, the impacts of the construction on the highways and how to mitigate that or pay for that. So that's an ongoing discussion. Senator Keel. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I think Mr. Richards may recall from a past life, it's a federal National Highway System roadway and Uncle Sam has rules for doing work on those that would make the Byzantines blush.

Do we have when you talked earlier in your presentation about technical expertise and other assistance to Glenfarn, has anybody run them through what it takes to fix an NHS road through the chair? Senator Keogh that's essentially been my role to be able to talk to them about the standard levels of a Federal Highway System project. But let me give another example. The liquefaction facility in Nikiski is going to be placed just south of the existing aggregate facility. For those who haven't been there, the Kenai spur highway runs right to the east of those facilities.

This plant is going to essentially sit on that Keenai spur highway existing alignment. So that alignment needs to change. Our work has come up, came up with a preferred alternative for relocating that that work for relocating it is designed to national highways or to the federal highway system standards, but the cost will be borne by the project. So Glenn Farm is aware of the standards. They are aware of the what the state needs to do to be able to design, build and then transfer a road to meet those national highways, national standards so that the state of Alaska will then have the opportunity to utilize federal funds on those roads in the future.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. If they're not using folks who've actually been through it before, I Recommend they add 40%. Further questions on the presentation, Senator Steadman? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not so much on his presentation, but I talked to the presenters here before the meeting because there was a news announcement right before about 11 o' clock this morning dealing with the coal plant and the Trump administration's put $700 million down.

Maybe a couple hundred million could end up in Alaska to pursue that. And the issue is, I guess the question is if we could have AGDC look at that to see if there's any, you know, if it's all for the mine up to West Sioux because it's a coal fired plant or is there an opportunity there to plug the mine in with natural gas also or are they going to generate extra electricity and ship it into the grid just so we can get an idea of the impact that may or may not, you know, facilitate the financing of the gas line project? Yes. Mr. Richards, can you look at that and submit something in writing to the. Committee through the chair, Senator Steadman?

Yes, we would be happy to look at that. I wasn't aware of that announcement until the Senator brought it to my attention right before this hearing. So we will dive in to see what that is all about. Further questions on the presentation? Seeing none.

Mr. Kissinger, do you have any closing comments? Chair Hoffman? Only that we support or we appreciate the deliberations and the conversation that we're having here. We hope that we've been able to provide the information that you need and we're available for any further follow up that is needed as we move through this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kissinger. Mr. Richards, closing comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm recalling the numerous times that I've sat in front of this committee with both you and Senator Stetman as chair and I appreciate the opportunity to come back and present and entertain the questions. Always very thoughtful.

I will say that what I heard us saying today, we use the collective term we, meaning Matt and I when we say we, but what we're referring to is AGDC's role as the State of Alaska's corporation. So it is our role and our mission to move this project in the best way forward for the best interest of the State of Alaska. So when you hear us say we, it's not the Matt and Frank team. It is AGDC as the state's corporation and we take that mission very seriously. And the board is very serious that we make sure that we are, we're complying with our statutes and meeting the missions that were granted to us.

So we're very honored to hold this position. We feel that the project has taken a major leap forward in having a developer that has really done a significant amount of work in a very short period of time. So it was really just about a year ago that they kicked off their efforts and they have moved forward very quickly. If you recall, our original goal was to bring in an Investor and seek $150 million. Well, they've, they've done that and they've achieved in moving forward with this project through the feed, but also in the gas sales, the looking at the debt financing options, etc.

So I feel that we are, we are positioned as a state to execute on a project that will help not only interior Alaskans, but South Central Alaskans and ultimately through the Energy Relief Fund, all of Alaskans, the opportunity to utilize the commercialization of those what has been stranded North Slope assets. So I appreciate working with the committee again. As Matt indicated, we're happy to provide any more insights that we can or work with the committee to be able to address what you feel is necessary to help us move this project forward. Thank you, Mr. Richards. That concludes the Finance Committee's work.

The presentation on the Alaska Gas Line Development Corporation. Is there anything else to come before the committee? Seeing none. Our next meeting will be June 5th. Tomorrow morning at 9am we will be having a presentation from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, known as aogc.

With that, we are adjourned.