The Kingdom's oil bill last year stood at JD1.66 billion, accounting for 20 per cent of GDP
AMMAN -- The government is currently negotiating with the international oil giant, Shell, to utilise oil shale in the Kingdom after the company proposed a new extraction technique.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Azmi Khreisat said on Monday that "contacts are still ongoing in the hope to reach an agreement and go ahead with the project."
Jordan's confirmed reserves of oil shale stand at 40 billion tonnes, of which 4 billion tonnes can be extracted as crude oil.
The reserves, experts said, are sufficient to provide Jordan with its energy needs for hundreds of years.
So far, government officials have said there is no scientifically proven technique to commercially exploit this wealth.
But Shell, according to the minister, responded to a call by the government to reassess the situation and forwarded a proposal detailing its potential investment in Jordan and the technology it would use.
Shell has previously reported that it has extracted high-quality crude oil from Colorado's vast oil shale reserves using a technological method developed by its research teams.
According to web sources, the new technique is a process called in-situ conversion that does not require mining.
Instead, electric heating elements are placed in bore holes, slowly heating the shale oil deposit. The released liquids are gathered in wells specifically designed for that purpose.
Speaking at a workshop on the future prospects of oil shale in Jordan, deputising for Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit, Khreisat noted that Jordan imports 95 per cent of its energy needs.
He said the yearly growth in domestic energy demand will remain at 3 per cent up until 2020, while demand on electricity will grow by 5 per cent during the same period.
The official also said that the Jordan Cement Factories Company is independently working on an experiment to use shale oil as fuel in the industry.
Jordan's oil bill last year stood at JD1.66 billion, accounting for 20 per cent of gross domestic product.
The minister added that the size of investment in the energy industry and installations is expected to reach JD200 million over the next decade, while investments in infrastructure schemes as projected in the national strategy for the energy sector between 2004-2015 is estimated at $3.3 billion.
By Imad Abdul Rahman
© Jordan Times 2006
