Jordanian shale: The Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) yesterday agreed to lend $1.6bn to a Jordanian electric power supplier for the development of an oil shale project in the Middle Eastern country. The oil project, which is owned by a group of Estonian and Malaysian investors, will eventually have a total capacity of 540 megawatts and will use oil shale for generating electricity. The plant is to be located south of the capital Amman and will be operational by 2019, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said. According to the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Jordan is sitting on 40bn tons of oil shale and presently currently imports about 97 % of its energy.
Source: english