Trump-linked investor to produce gas in Alaska with Russia's Novatek

Gentry Beach, an American investor associated with the family of US President Donald Trump, has signed an agreement with the Russian company Novatek to develop natural gas fields in Alaska. This was reported by the investor himself to The New York Times (NYT). The deal may mark the first known instance of an American investor "formalizing" a new business project with a major Russian company since the Kremlin began promoting Russia-US deal-making opportunities after Donald Trump returned to the White House, despite ongoing hostilities in Ukraine and continued sanctions against Russia, the NYT wrote.

The agreement in question was signed "without publicity" last fall, the investor said. Novatek confirmed to the newspaper that it was "indeed negotiating the potential use" of its technology to liquefy natural gas in the remote northern region of Alaska. The project is in its early stages and faces significant hurdles, Beach pointed out, declining to disclose financial details of the deal. Novatek did not confirm that it was Beech who was in talks.

Nevertheless, the U.S. investor emphasized that its joint project with Novatek is "known at the highest levels" in Moscow and Washington. The project would use an approach developed by Novatek to transport gas from remote parts of the Russian Arctic: the gas would be turned into liquefied natural gas in a fast-building, prefabricated plant and transported from Alaska by icebreaker, the NYT reported. "Novatek emphasized in its statement that the climate in the Arctic and Alaska is similar.

Beach also confirmed that the agreement includes the use of a mobile natural gas liquefaction plant already under construction at Novatek's facility in Russia's Murmansk region. He also revealed that he would seek to use icebreaking gas tankers built in South Korea to transport gas from Alaska to Asian markets.

The agreement with the Russian company, Beach said, is viewed "solely from a business" point of view.

Gentry Beach's project could be a solution to the U.S. energy industry's long-standing problem about how to sell the vast amounts of natural gas extracted from a stretch of tundra off Alaska's Arctic Ocean coast, the NYT points out, recalling that the idea faces serious challenges, among them attracting big energy companies.

The deal, according to the American investor, he discussed in talks with Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson last year in Dubai and Europe. "It's time for all of us to work together," Beach announced during the NYT interview, calling himself a "peacemaker."

Mikhelson has been under sanctions in the UK and Canada since 2022. The US and the EU have not imposed any restrictions on him.

American investor, financier, as Reuters writes about him, Gentry Beach - known as a college friend of the US President's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. He began his career at Morgan Stanley in New York, managing portfolios for leading private and institutional investors before founding his own hedge fund, Vollero Beach Capital Partners, which eventually became part of Citadel. In 2017 - after Trump's first election campaign ended - Beach served as vice chairman of the finance division of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration Committee. Now the investor manages a hedge fund and a private investment fund, writes the NYT.

In an interview with the newspaper, the financier assured that his relationship with Donald Trump Jr. did not play a role in the Novatek deal, and in general - that he "did not do any business with Trump at any level." In addition, Beach emphasized that his initiative was not part of the negotiations between the U.S. and Russia, which were handled from Washington by Trump's adviser, Steve Whitkoff, the U.S. president's special envoy for peace, the NYT points out.

"Novatek is under partial U.S. sanctions: restrictions, for example, apply to its LNG projects, including Arctic LNG 2. Last September, a State Department spokesman warned that doing business with this Russian project carries a "significant risk of sanctions." He made this statement after restricted Russian vessels, which, according to the US government, had visited the Arctic LNG 2 facilities, made several LNG offloads in China.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor