Alaska Policy Commentary  ·  June 3, 2026

Glenfarne Just Released Their Cost Estimates. Would a Serious Financing Institution Accept Them?

Today's Senate Finance hearing revealed Glenfarne's self-prepared 2026 cost figures for Alaska LNG. The numbers don't survive contact with project finance reality — and the global capital markets have already signaled their answer by staying silent.

By Tom Lamb  ·  HB 381 · Special Session 2026

Glenfarne presented their 2026 cost estimates to the Alaska Senate Finance Committee today. The headline figures: $44.5 billion on the low end, $54.5 billion on the high end. The Legislature was apparently expected to find this reassuring. It shouldn't. These numbers create more financing problems than they solve — and they reveal why, fifteen months after Glenfarne became lead developer, there is still no committed financing for this project.

Project finance is not a field that takes developer self-estimates at face value. It is a field built on independent verification, benchmarking, and stress-testing every assumption a developer makes. What Glenfarne presented today will not survive that process intact.

"The global capital markets have seen Glenfarne's numbers. They haven't committed. That silence is the most honest assessment of this project's financibility available."

The Numbers Glenfarne Released Today

Glenfarne's own 2026 internal cost estimate, presented in public session to the Senate Finance Committee:

Asset	Low ($MM)	High ($MM)
Pipeline (Phase I)	$13,200	$16,900
LNG Export Terminal (Phase II)	$23,600	$28,400
Gas Treatment Plant (Phase II)	$7,700	$9,200
Total	$44,500	$54,500

Three problems with these figures are immediately apparent to anyone who works in project finance.

First, the low end is implausible. $44.5 billion in 2026 is essentially the same as the 2018 AGDC estimate of $46.2 billion — somehow lower after eight years of construction cost inflation, COVID supply chain disruption, and the steepest materials cost escalation in a generation. The Engineering News-Record Construction Cost Index rose approximately 40–50% over that same period. Every comparable infrastructure mega-project built or estimated since 2018 came in dramatically higher than pre-COVID projections. Glenfarne is asking the financing market to believe Alaska LNG is the exception.

Second, the $10 billion range is itself a financing problem. Lenders don't finance ranges. They finance fixed costs with defined contingency buffers, established through independent engineering to a level of precision sufficient for bankable debt service modeling. A $10 billion spread — 22% of the low-end estimate — signals that the cost basis is not yet at the level of detail required to close project financing.

Third, the independent benchmark gap is unresolved. Rapidan Energy Group, an independent energy consultancy, puts the export terminal phase alone at up to $60 billion — against Glenfarne's $23.6–$28.4 billion for the same component. That is a $30+ billion gap on a single line item. No project finance bank will close without reconciling that discrepancy through their own independent technical review.

What Project Finance Lenders Actually Require

Project finance for a mega-project like Alaska LNG is non-recourse debt — meaning lenders can only be repaid from the project's own cash flows. That structure demands extraordinary due diligence on costs, because if the project costs more than projected, there is no corporate balance sheet backstop.

Every major project finance lender — commercial banks, export credit agencies, the U.S. Export-Import Bank — requires independent engineers to validate cost assumptions and benchmark them against comparable completed projects. This is not optional. It is a standard condition of the due diligence process, applied regardless of how credible the developer appears to be.

Those independent engineers will run Glenfarne's figures against the global database of comparable LNG and pipeline construction costs. They will find the Rapidan analysis. They will apply post-COVID inflation adjustments. And their conclusions will determine whether the debt service math works — not what Glenfarne put in a slide deck.

What Lenders Require — What Alaska LNG Has Today

Independent validated cost estimate: Required by every major lender as a condition of due diligence. Alaska LNG has a self-prepared internal estimate with a $10 billion range that hasn't been independently validated.

Fixed EPC contract with locked cost: Required to model debt service with certainty. Alaska LNG has a provisionally selected contractor. No fixed lump-sum contract exists.

Finalized take-or-pay offtake agreements: Lenders require executed contracts covering minimum debt service quantities. Alaska LNG has 13 MTPA in preliminary LOIs with TotalEnergies, JERA, Tokyo Gas, CPC, PTT, and POSCO. None are finalized.

Committed equity: Lenders require credible equity partners with skin in the game. Alaska LNG has $50 million in development capital from Danaos Corporation — development funding, not construction equity.

Committed debt financing: Alaska LNG has none. The CEO confirmed today that financing arrangements are still being assembled and are contingent on tax legislation passing.

Glenfarne's Own Texas Project Shows What Committed Financing Looks Like

Glenfarne is simultaneously developing Texas LNG — a 4 MTPA export terminal in Brownsville, Texas, roughly one-tenth the cost of Alaska LNG. The contrast in financing progress is stark.

Texas LNG assembled a $5.7 billion committed bank group from leading financial institutions. It has a fixed lump-sum turnkey EPC contract with Kiewit — a known, bankable number that lenders could model. It was on schedule for early 2026 FID. That is what a financeable project looks like.

Alaska LNG — fifteen times larger, infinitely more complex, in a remote Arctic environment — has $50 million in development capital, preliminary letters of intent, a provisionally selected contractor, and a self-prepared cost estimate with a $10 billion range. These are not equivalent situations. The financing gap between what Texas LNG achieved and where Alaska LNG stands today is not a minor procedural difference. It is the entire problem.

"Texas LNG closed a $5.7 billion committed bank group with a fixed EPC contract. Alaska LNG — fifteen times larger — has $50 million in development capital and a self-prepared range. These are not comparable situations."

Tax Certainty Is Necessary — But Not Sufficient

To be fair to Glenfarne's core argument: tax certainty is a genuine condition of FID for LNG projects. International project finance lenders do require regulatory and tax stability before committing capital. On this narrow point, Glenfarne is correct.

But tax certainty is one condition among several that must be satisfied simultaneously. Passing HB 381 delivers Alaska's piece of the puzzle. It does not produce a validated cost estimate. It does not generate a fixed EPC contract. It does not close the Rapidan gap. It does not finalize 16 MTPA in take-or-pay offtake agreements. It does not assemble a committed bank group.

All of those conditions remain open — and the CEO confirmed today that financing won't close without them. The Legislature is being asked to deliver a permanent, irrevocable tax concession as a precondition for Glenfarne to begin assembling the rest of the financing stack. That stack may or may not come together. If it doesn't, Alaska has permanently restructured its tax code for a project that was never built.

The Question the Legislature Should Be Asking

If Glenfarne's $44.5 billion figure is credible and the project is financeable at that cost, the financing should be closeable now — or very soon. The offtake agreements are substantial. The federal permits are in place. The national security tailwind is real. Baker Hughes and POSCO are credible partners.

So why isn't there a committed bank group? Why has FID slipped from end of 2025 to sometime in 2026 — and now potentially into 2027? Why did Glenfarne extend cost evaluation another year if the numbers are solid?

The most parsimonious answer is that the financing market has seen these numbers and found them insufficient. Project finance banks don't stay silent out of politeness. They stay silent because the deal isn't bankable yet.

The Legislature should demand answers to these questions before passing HB 381 — not after. A permanent tax restructuring enacted before the financing closes is a concession Alaska can never take back, given to a project that may never get built. That is not a deal. That is a gift.

Tom Lamb  ·  June 3, 2026  ·  Alaska Policy Commentary