Estonia to build Jordan's first oil-shale power plant

Apr 30, 2008, 13:25 GMT

Tallinn - The Baltic nation of Estonia inked an agreement with Jordan Wednesday to build Jordan's first oil-shale fuelled power plant.

Estonia's Eesti Energia, the government of Jordan and National Electric Power Company agreed to build the power plant capable of producing up to 900 megawatts of electricity from oil shale, a fine- grained sedimentary rock, Estonian energy officials said.

'The power plant to be built in Jordan would be the first considerable oil shale-fuelled power plant operating outside Estonia, Eesti Energia board chairman Sandor Liive was quoted by the Baltic News Service (BNS) as saying.

'We will have the wonderful opportunity of applying the knowledge and skills accumulated in Estonia in the valuation of oil shale and getting energy out of that mineral resource.'

One of the smallest countries in the European Union, Estonia produces 90 per cent of its power from the sedimentary rock. Estonia accounts for 70 per cent of the world's processed oil shale. Large deposits are also found in the United States, Australia, Brazil and Jordan.

By building an electric power plant based on oil shale, Jordan hopes to reduce its dependence on imported energy, Jordanian minister for energy and mineral resources Khaldoun Qteishat was quoted by BNS as saying.

Jordan has the third- or fourth-largest oil shale reserves in the world. The estimated total amount of the reserves is up to 60 billion tons, which is 12 times as much as in Estonia.

Twenty-four oil shale deposits of different sizes are known in Jordan, and eight of those have been researched more thoroughly.