Alex DeMarban
Alex DeMarban covers Alaska’s economy through the lens of large energy projects, resource development and the everyday businesses that keep the state running. He reports for the Anchorage Daily News on business, the oil and gas industries and general assignments, connecting corporate decisions and government policy to concrete outcomes for workers, communities and consumers. His coverage stands out for the way it tracks long-running projects over time while returning repeatedly to the fortunes of local enterprises, creating a continuous picture of how broad economic shifts land in individual shops, restaurants and neighborhoods.
Alaska LNG and long-haul energy projects
Much of DeMarban’s reporting follows the Alaska LNG project, treating it as a business story shaped by financing, tax legislation and labor agreements rather than only a political fight. He reports on preliminary agreements between the project and unions designed to maximize Alaska hires, highlighting issues of workforce availability, labor stability and coordination between building trades and contractors. He details how the project’s multibillion-dollar financing hinges on specific tax legislation and regulatory approvals, including gas purchase agreements and decisions on an 800-mile pipeline to deliver natural gas to Southcentral Alaska.
Across these pieces he consistently foregrounds dollar figures, timelines and conditions attached to investment decisions, showing readers what must happen before construction can move ahead.
He also follows the project into the legislative arena, covering special sessions where lawmakers weigh tax breaks and other incentives tied to the LNG venture. His stories from these sessions track the absence or presence of concrete bills, the small number of lawmakers in the room at key moments and the implications of delays for project backers and critics.
By pairing legislative process details with cost estimates that climb into the tens of billions of dollars, he keeps the focus on how political decisions affect the economic viability of a flagship energy project. The result is coverage that treats LNG as a test case for how the state manages large-scale resource development in partnership with private firms and labor groups.
Local businesses under pressure
Alongside megaprojects, DeMarban regularly writes about individual businesses facing shifting costs, regulation and competition.
In his story on three Dairy Queen locations closing in Anchorage, Wasilla and Palmer, he zeroes in on the sudden loss of familiar outlets, the franchise structure behind them and the contrast with a long-running, locally owned restaurant that remains open in Soldotna. He reports what the chain’s corporate office will say about the closures and what it withholds, while quoting the Soldotna owner on why his family declined to take over the shuttered stores and how sales at the remaining location are performing.
The piece ties a national brand’s footprint to local ownership decisions and franchise dynamics, and notes that the chain is actively seeking new franchisees in Alaska.
His profile of the Natural Pantry grocery store at its 50-year mark focuses on the business practices and customer loyalty that helped a single store weather shipping disruptions, labor shortages and tariff-driven inflation over decades.
The story traces how frugality, careful expansion and a devoted clientele allowed the business to absorb shocks that have challenged many retailers, linking global tariff policies to prices on local shelves. In another line of coverage, he examines how small breweries and a meadery have gone out of business in recent years, quoting owners who blame rising costs and what they call restrictive state rules on tasting rooms and sales.
These pieces build a pattern: he takes readers inside the balance sheets and regulatory burdens of small enterprises and shows how broad economic and policy decisions translate into closures, anniversaries or reinvention on the ground.
Resource development, ports and infrastructure
DeMarban’s work on resource projects extends beyond LNG to mining and transportation infrastructure. He reports on the Trump administration’s move to begin an environmental review for a proposed open-pit copper and zinc mine near Northwest Alaska communities, explaining how the project would rely on the controversial Ambler road and could open the door to wider mineral activity in the region. His coverage lays out production plans in daily tons of ore, the expected mix of metals, and the multi-stage transport path from mine to smelters outside Alaska, including trucking, rail and ocean shipping.
He quantifies potential economic benefits in construction jobs, state revenue and annual wages, while noting the role of a formal public comment period in shaping the environmental review.
He also reports on federal transportation grants, such as the selection of multiple port projects in Alaska to receive $115 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation. In that coverage he traces how grant money would be used to upgrade the railcar-only tunnel to Whittier, a key conduit for supplies headed to North Slope oil operations, and to plan replacement of an aging petroleum terminal at the Port of Alaska.
By tying federal spending to specific facilities and military and commercial supply chains, he frames infrastructure upgrades as business stories with clear operational stakes.
In urban settings, he applies a similar approach to smaller-scale infrastructure, writing about EasyPark’s decision to open long-term parking in the 5th Avenue Garage as downtown gains more residents and demand for parking changes. That story connects a municipal parking operator’s strategy to broader shifts in housing and city-center use, again linking everyday services to economic trends.
Business angles in politics and elections
Though his core work is on business and energy, DeMarban also brings that lens to political coverage. In his reporting on a hotly contested U.S. Senate race, he notes the early lead of a challenger and situates the contest within the wider electoral landscape, drawing attention to how campaign dynamics intersect with economic concerns. His author page highlights past reporting on trade disputes, including how tariffs between the United States and Canada add uncertainty for Alaska businesses already facing higher prices, underscoring his habit of connecting national policy conflicts to local cost structures and cross-border economic ties.
Across politics and elections coverage, he maintains focus on what legislative outcomes, trade rules and regulatory decisions mean for business owners, workers and project developers, keeping economic impact at the center of stories that might otherwise be treated as purely political.
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