Jordan signs deal with Chinese banks to finance oil shale project
Xinhua, September 30, 2015 Adjust font size:
Jordan's first shale oil-fueled power plant signed Tuesday a memorandum of understanding with state-owned Chinese banks to finance the project.
Mohammad Maaitah, project partner of Attarat Power Company (APCO) that owns the oil shale plant, said the company signed an agreement with the Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to get about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars loan to finance the project that costs 2.4 billion dollars.
"The Chinese banks voiced strong support to our project and we will secure the rest of the amount for the project soon," Maaitah told Xinhua.
The 470-megawatts plant is expected to be operational in early 2018.
Jordan signed an agreement last year with Estonia's Eesti Energia AS, Malaysia's YTL Power International Berhad and Jordan's Near East to build the plant.
Jordan, which has over 40 billion tons of oil shale in reserves, imports about 96 percent of its energy at a cost of 2.8 billion dollars annually, or 21 percent of its gross domestic product.
It plans to increase self-produced energy to 60 percent of its consumption by 2020. Endit