Trump Denies 'Jumping the Gun' on South Korea LNG Investment Announcement
US President Donald Trump has denied 'jumping the gun' on announcing a South Korean investment in Alaska's LNG project, despite Seoul suggesting that one key element of the deal was not yet set in stone.
The planned $54 billion pipeline for the long-planned LNG project has been a major focus of Trump's push to steer South Korean investment into the project. However, state-supported Yonhap news agency reported that an official from Seoul's industry ministry was surprised by Trump's claim that the US trade deal with South Korea includes $8.4 billion for a project to push out crude from an aging oilfield.
The total South Korean investment announced would be $200 billion in US projects, including the construction of eight large nuclear power plants, a natural gas pipeline, and a 6-gigawatt power plant in Texas as part of a broader $350 billion strategic investment package made by Seoul last year under a trade agreement with Washington.
Trump's announcement on Wednesday came despite the fact that the project to build an LNG liquefaction facility in Alaska's southern port of Nikiski would cost more than twice as much as a comparable US Gulf Coast plant.