American executives quit a 25 billion dollar Alaska gas project over claims that Russia’s Novatek secretly financed and controlled it

A 25 billion dollar plan to ship Alaska gas to the world has lost nearly its entire leadership over a question of who was really paying for it. Joel Riddle, the former chief executive of Polar Train LNG, told the Financial Times that he discovered Russia’s Novatek was already financing the venture and directing its operations before Polar Train had permission from Treasury sanctions authorities to negotiate with the Russian group at all. Riddle resigned in September. The chief financial officer, Dan Chandra, the executive vice president, Jim Smith, and the executions manager, Jody Trantham, left with him or after him.

Riddle said he had believed the project was funded by the investor Gentry Beach and by Tech Wave Industrial Projects Management, a company based in Abu Dhabi. He later concluded that Novatek was providing the capital and controlling the company’s strategic direction. Novatek is Russia’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas and sits under American sanctions, which is why any dealing with it runs through the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Polar LNG, the project company, rejects the account in full. It says Riddle was terminated for cause and calls him a disgruntled former employee, and it says it is investigating claims concerning him that may end in litigation. The company says Tech Wave provided the financing and started preliminary engineering work with American contractors, that the project is seeking American investors and partners, and that development is being pursued in full compliance with American law. It also says it has applied to the Treasury for a license authorizing the proposed purchase of an unfinished gravity based structure from Novatek, which is an admission that at least one major piece of the project does depend on a sanctions decision in Washington.

Novatek’s own account sits between the two. The Russian company says it granted Tech Wave the right to use its technology in Alaska and signed a memorandum of understanding with Polar Train in April, while Riddle was still chief executive. It says any large scale project would require approvals from both American and Russian authorities, and it denies that access to its solution depends on sanctions relief for Arctic LNG 2, its sanctioned Russian project.

The venture aims to move North Slope gas to Asian markets on shorter Arctic routes and to start deliveries by the end of 2030, if permits, financing and engineering come together. The resignations land while the White House is in high level talks with Moscow, which gives a financing dispute inside one Alaska company a weight it would not carry in a quieter year. Bloomberg reported the Novatek financing account as well on Saturday. No American regulator has announced an investigation, and the Treasury has not ruled on the license application in public.