Alaska Gas Project Leaders Exit as Russian Funding Claims Surface

The management team of a major Alaska gas project is largely gone following new allegations that a Russian energy giant secretly financed the venture.

Polar Train LNG, a US$25 billion export project planned for the Alaskan north, has seen almost its entire executive team depart. The exits followed a report by the Financial Times claiming that Russia's Novatek secretly funded and controlled the company. The project was launched in March 2026 with the goal of relocating a partially built Novatek terminal to Alaska.

Joel Riddle, the former chief executive, told the Financial Times that he raised concerns about possible breaches of US sanctions. He stated that he discovered Novatek was funding the venture and directing operations before the required approvals were in place. The company had asked the US Treasury Department for permission to negotiate with the Russian group, but that approval has not yet been granted.

Riddle resigned in September 2026, and chief financial officer Dan Chandra and other executives left afterward. "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 said. He initially believed the money came from Gentry Beach, an investor with ties to Donald Trump's family, and from Tech Wave, a company based in Abu Dhabi. Riddle later learned that Beach was neither a shareholder nor an executive.

The Financial Times reviewed WhatsApp messages in which Novatek board member Denis Solovyov discussed financing the project. Solovyov pressed for a faster transfer of funds to Polar Train LNG in those messages. Polar LNG rejected the allegations, stating that Riddle had been dismissed. The company called him a "disgruntled employee" and insisted the project was being developed in line with US law.

Novatek said it had agreed to let Tech Wave use its technology in Alaska. The two companies signed a memorandum in April 2026, when Riddle was still leading the company. People who spoke to the newspaper said the project had come up in talks between Washington and Moscow. The discussions reportedly included a possible swap where Novatek would offer its expertise for building the Alaska terminal in exchange for sanctions relief on Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project.

The controversy builds on earlier reports from February 2026. At that time, Ekonomichna Pravda cited The New York Times in reporting that Gentry Beach had announced an agreement with Novatek on the gas project. On October 9, 2026, reports indicated that Russia was seeking sanctions relief as part of negotiations over a possible "energy ceasefire" with Ukraine.