US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that a long-planned liquefied natural gas pipeline in Alaska was going to happen, but there were still some details that needed to be worked out with South Korea.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced plans for South Korea to invest $200 billion in US projects, including the Alaska pipeline, but Seoul quickly suggested the LNG project was not yet set in stone.
“I think it’s something that’s going to happen. Obviously, you still got to work out some of the details, and the South Koreans have spoken to that,” Vance told reporters in Washington when asked about the project.
“But when there’s a demand for this stuff, and there really is strong demand for American natural gas, I think we’re going to be able to get it done,” he added.
South Korean Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il said in parliament on Tuesday that the government planned to start reviewing the investment to assess its commercial viability.
“The US shares the understanding that commercial reasonableness is important,” Lee said.
In a separate parliamentary session on Tuesday, South Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan also noted that commercial viability was a prerequisite for the project, but added that there “certainly” was strategic value given energy supply disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict.
(Reporting by Jacob Bogage and Ismail Shakil, Additional Reporting by Jihoon Lee in Seoul; editing by Michelle Nichols and Ed Davies)