Production of shale oil from Jordan is expected to be produced in the next five years. The Saudi Arabian Corporation of Oil Shale will begin production in Jordan after agreements it signed were recently approved by the government, according to news site Zawya.
Under the $2-3 billion project, the company will start producing 3,000 barrels of oil per day in five years.
The company’s production will reach about 30,000 barrels of oil per day by 2025, according to Maher Hijazin, president of Saudi Arabian Corporation of Oil Shale, stressing the importance of the project in meeting the Kingdom’s rising energy needs.
Jordan consumes around 100,000 barrels of oil per day, according to official figures.
The company will use the Russian technology of oil shale pyrolysis (UTT-3000), he said, adding that the operations and production will be in the Atarat Umm Ghadran area.
In March 2013, the Cabinet approved a concession agreement between the Saudi company and the Natural Resources Authority (NRA) in this regard.
Jordan, which imports about 96 per cent of its energy needs annually at a cost of over one-fifth of the gross domestic product, has about 40 billion tonnes of oil shale reserves, the fourth largest in the world, according to the NRA.
The country’s national energy strategy plans for electricity produced by oil shale to account for 14 per cent of its energy mix by 2020.
The strategy aims to boost domestic energy output from 3 per cent to over half the country’s energy mix with a series of oil shale, natural gas, renewable energy and nuclear power projects.
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