Enefit Expects Building of Jordan Power Plant to Start in 2012
Construction of Enefit's oil shale power plant in Jordan - the first in the country - is planned to start next year, the project's director said on Monday.
Andres Anijalg, director of Enefit's oil shale project in Jordan, said negotiations, regarding also environmental concerns, with Jordan's Ministry of Environment and the state's power compnay, are expected to conclude by the end of 2011, the Jordan Times reported.
Anijalg told the newspaper that the the cost of operating a power plant fueled by oil shale is “significantly lower” than of a diesel, heavy oil or gas powered plant. “Speaking from our experience in Estonia, we have shut down the plants that operate on gas because we found it much cheaper to generate electricity from oil shale,” he said.
Enefit, the international subsidiary of Eesti Energia, is one of the three companies working on extracting oil shale in Jordan, which owns an estimated 50 billion tons of the resource. Enefit signed a 44-year contract with Jordan in 2010, according to which the company should produce up to 40,000 barrels of oil per day by 2019.
Ott Tammik