The liquefaction facility, located in Nikiski, will process, store, and transport up to 20 million tons of LNG per year. Illustration courtesy Alaska Gasline Development Corporation
See President Trump meet Vladimir Putin at US military base in Alaska
Aug. 16, 2025
And back in March of this year:
Planned LNG plant in Alaska seeks equipment from sanctioned Russia firm
March 30, 202610:26 PM GMT+1Updated March 31, 2026
WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) – The head of Polar LNG, a company that plans to build a liquefied natural gas plant on Alaska’s North Slope, said his company is hoping to buy discounted equipment from a Russian project on which Washington has imposed sanctions.
Polar LNG launched on Monday. Joel Riddle, its president and CEO, in an interview said the company wants to make a final investment decision on its plant in mid-2027 and start producing LNG in 2029 or 2030.
Polar LNG is hoping to get approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control to buy the equipment, including a partially built liquefaction plant, from Arctic LNG 2. The administrations of former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump have both imposed sanctions on the project. The U.S. Treasury Department had no comment. Novatek (NVTK.MM), opens new tab, which owns about 60% of Arctic LNG 2, said it was aware of Polar LNG’s interest in its production technology. “Working-level discussions on possible engagement options are currently underway,” Novatek said.
The first phase of the project will take $8 billion to $9 billion in investments to produce 7 million tons a year of the fuel that could be sold to Japan, South Korea and other countries. The plant could be expanded in one or two more phases that would require similar investments.
Gentry Beach, a friend of Donald Trump Jr, is one investor in the project, Riddle said. Beach did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Polar LNG wants to finance more than half of the project with U.S. capital, but is open to investments from companies in Japan and other countries.
The project would collaborate with another project called Alaska LNG that the Trump administration is hoping will be built in coming years.
The North Slope is subject to severe weather and impacts from climate change that have driven some energy companies from the region. Riddle said the equipment the company seeks to buy is Arctic tested. The company also plans to buy six icebreakers.
A group of American executives has quit an energy startup that aspired to liquefy and export natural gas out of Alaska, alleging they recently learned it was secretly being funded by Russian gas giant Novatek.
Polar LNG, the startup, was launched in March with what seemed like a long-shot goal. The U.S. company wanted to get a license to import a half-finished piece of equipment from the Russian company, with the goal of exporting a geyser of gas from beneath Alaska’s North Slope.
The massive structure—as tall as the Statue of Liberty and suitable for frigid conditions—had fallen under sanctions during the Biden administration in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But Polar hoped its project would find favor with the Trump administration’s goal of “energy dominance” for America.
The sanctions also meant the equipment was available at a knockdown price, people involved in the project said. Securing it would mean Polar wouldn’t have to build its own from scratch.
Then the plans hit a snag: It turned out the project was being run and at least partly funded by Russian energy company Novatek, former Polar executives said. Joel Riddle, Polar’s CEO until September and a former ExxonMobil employee, says he resigned after the discovery, which he said emerged in budget discussions over the summer.
“I felt uncomfortable that the Russian company Novatek was financing and ultimately controlling the strategic direction of the company,” Riddle said.
Other executives left with Riddle. Their departures and the alleged Russian funding were earlier reported by the Financial Times and the New York Times.
Novatek didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House, the Treasury Department and the State Department didn’t return calls for comment.
Novatek isn’t sanctioned by the U.S., and Europe has continued to buy its LNG since the invasion of Ukraine. Unlike many other Russian companies, Novatek has continued to have a presence in the U.S. and in European capitals during the war, paying lobbyists and elite law firms to try to influence sanctions and energy policy.
Polar’s project required convincing the Treasury Department to give it a license to buy the infrastructure from a sanctioned entity, Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 business. It hasn’t received the go-ahead.
Two former Polar executives said high-ranking officials at the company shared concerns about Novatek’s role with the administration around early September and that government officials expressed concern.
Polar would have to import the gear from Russia by tugboat. Then, there was the issue of building the project on Alaska’s North Slope, dredging an enormous amount of seabed and securing icebreaker tankers to chart paths in the Arctic.
Monetizing the gas beneath Alaska has been a long-held ambition of many American energy executives. But the gas remains underdeveloped because shuttling it to domestic markets via pipeline would be costly and logistically daunting, as would liquefying it and shipping it internationally from where it is produced.
Russia, meanwhile, has poured resources into liquefied natural gas, and Novatek emerged as its national champion. The company is one of the few major energy producers that remain in private hands after a quarter-century of rule by President Vladimir Putin.
Novatek was partway through building a new export facility named Arctic LNG 2 in 2023 when the Biden administration sanctioned the project. The sanctions threw sand in the gears, stopping the project from importing parts from overseas.
A Norwegian executive at Novatek named Bjorn Gundersen, who is credited with having developed the technology used at Arctic LNG 2, left for Tech Wave, an engineering firm in Abu Dhabi, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tech Wave owned Polar and provided most of Polar’s capital. But in discussions over new, much-needed funding over the summer, it became clear that senior Novatek executives were really calling the shots and allocating capital, Riddle said.
Gundersen didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Around the same time, the sanctions bill named after late Sen. Lindsey Graham was making its way through Congress and threatened to make it even harder for Polar to get permission to transact with Novatek.
Polar executives had lobbied the White House and President Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council to get the go-ahead from the Treasury Department, said people familiar with their efforts. As of last month, there weren’t signs the efforts had momentum, according to the people and Riddle’s resignation letter, which The Wall Street Journal reviewed.
Former CEO: Russian Firm Backed Alaska Gas Venture
By Newsmax Wires | Saturday, 24 October 2026 02:43 PM EDT
Joel Riddle, former chief executive of Polar Train LNG, told the Financial Times he resigned in September after discovering what he described as undisclosed Russian involvement in the proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal on Alaska’s North Slope.
“I resigned as chief executive of Polar LNG because I felt uncomfortable that the Russian company Novatek was financing and ultimately controlling the strategic direction of the company,” Riddle told the newspaper.
“Building an LNG facility in Alaska is a very strategic project for the US and as a patriot I feel this needs to be developed using US technology and funded by US investors, not a Russian company.”
Polar LNG disputed his allegations, calling Riddle a “disgruntled employee” who was terminated. The company maintained that its operations comply with U.S. law.
“Development activities are being pursued in full compliance with applicable US laws,” the company told the Financial Times.
Bjørn Gundersen, Deputy Director of Novatek’s LNG Projects, refuses to speak with journalists. Archive photo by Thomas Nilsen
Bjørn Gundersen is Deputy Director of Novatek’s LNG Projects Department and plays a key role in the company’s grand development of the Arctic LNG 2, one of the biggest energy projects in the Arctic ever. He spoke in this Thursday’s Neighbor Conference in Kirkenes, Norway.
The event was open for the public. It was organized in connection with this week’s 75 year commemorations of Soviet liberation of Kirkenes.
About 15,000 people will have their jobs in the Arctic LNG 2, and Murmansk will become among the world’s leading centers for building of oil and gas facilities and platforms, Gundersen said and highlighted that «this is now in the making.»
The company representative is responsible for the development of the Kola Yard, the plant for construction of floating LNG platforms for the Arctic LNG 2.
About 10,000 people are now involved in the building works at Belokamenka, a few kilometers from Murmansk, Gundersen said. The three platforms to be built on site are combined three times bigger than the largest offshore installation ever built in the North Sea, he made clear. The construction of first of the platforms started in June this year.
According to Gundersen, he might be the only Norwegian working in Novatek, but there are a number of Norwegian companies involved as subcontractors in the Arctic LNG 2 project. Among them are Dr Techn. Olav Olsen, Concrete Structures, Trelleborg, IKM, Tschudi Shipping and more.
Bjørn Gundersen was very clear that he foresees a stronger future involvement of Norwegian companies in the LNG project. «After all, Kirkenes is only 250 kilometers from Murmansk and it would be tragic if we do not manage to succeed with cooperation,» he told the audience in Kirkenes.
Novatek’s projects in the Arctic have wide-reaching implications for local societies, economy and environment. But Bjørn Gundersen and Novatek are highly reluctant to share their views with the public.
When requested to respond to a question about Novatek’s activities in Murmansk, the company representative abruptly rejected.
«I can not take any questions from the Barents Observer, nor from any other media» he underlined and referred to the company press department.
The questions were subsequently forwarded to Novatek’s press departments.
No response from the company’s Moscow office had come by the time of publishing this report.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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