Enefit together with its partners, YTL Power International Berhad of Malaysia and Near East Investments of Jordan, reached agreement with the Jordanian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and the National Electric Power Company on the terms of the contracts which will underpin the development of Jordan's first direct burning oil shale fired power plant.
The Enefit consortium has conducted an extensive exploration programme and developed a mining plan and technical concept for the power plant since having been awarded rights over the mining area in July 2010. Reaching an agreement over the terms of project contract allows the project to proceed to the next stage of running a tender for the main engineering, procurement and construction package, which is now expected to commence within the next month.
The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, His Excellency Alaa Batayneh commented: "We highly appreciate the cooperation with the Enefit led consortium. Using oil shale as an energy source will mean a fundamental shift for Jordan on the road to securing its own indigenous energy supply. The new oil shale based power plant will deliver significant economic benefits to Jordan, including reducing the Kingdom's expenditure on the import of oil products for power generation by more than 500 million USD a year."
Jordan has one of the largest oil shale resources in the world but it is as yet undeveloped. Sandor Liive, CEO of Enefit, the Estonian national oil shale company said: "With over 60 years of oil shale generation experience, Enefit has a unique position of leadership from which to assist Jordan achieve a cost effective and fully controllable domestic energy supply. We very much look forward to continuing our cooperation with the Jordanian Government."
Enefit is the national energy company of Estonia. Enefit owns and operates some 2,000MW of direct oil shale fired mine-mouth power generation capacity and supplies electricity to some 500,000 customers. Enefit is currently constructing a further 300MW circulating fluidised bed power generation plant in Estonia which will be the most efficient and environmentally friendly oil shale fired power plant in the world. The new power plant is scheduled to be operational at the end of 2015.
Enefit is also one of the largest producers of (kerogen) shale oil in the world and has been engaged in oil shale processing for over 30 years. In 2010, Enefit commenced the construction of a new shale oil plant in Estonia, using a new generation Enefit-280 technology. The first new plant will be completed in 2012 and this will form the basis of the technology to be used in Jordan in a similar oil project in due course.
More than 1 billion tons of oil shale have been mined, nearly 200 million barrels of oil have been produced and more than 550TWh of electricity have been produced from oil shale in Estonia to date.
YTL Power International Berhad (YTLPI) is one of the largest companies listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange. YTLPI owns and operates some 5,500MW of gas, oil and coal-fired power generation plants in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia and is an active trader of oil products in the Singapore market where it has approximately 1 million m3 of storage capacity. YTLPI also owns 100% of Wessex Water Services Limited, a water and sewerage services company that serves the south west of England in the UK and a one-third stake in ElectraNet S.A. which owns and operates the electricity transmission network in South Australia.
YTLPI is the utility subsidiary of YTL Corporation Berhad (YTL Corp), one of the largest groups in Malaysia with interests in construction, power, cement manufacturing, water and sewerage services, property development, hotel development and management, information technology and e-commerce initiatives, wireless communications and rail services. YTLPI reported Total Revenue of USD4.6 billion for the year ended 30 June 2011, Assets of USD11.1 billion and Net Profit of USD 394 million.
Near East Investment (NEI) is the holding company of Near East Group, founded in 1963 in Amman, Jordan. The Group's main focus is projects development, aviation, telecommunications, real estate and manages a diversified portfolio of assets. The aim is to be a global investment group that seeks, recognizes and participates in growing trends, and to contribute to society.
With the success of the company due to the favourable economic conditions and effective management between the 1960's to the 1980's it was deemed necessary to decentralize and establish other branches both in Jordan and abroad, add new lines. Thus, the Near East Group got to dealing in various fields and to represent a number of International and European companies.
Because of Jordan's geographical location and its close proximity and friendly relationship with the other Middle Eastern countries, the group has become a central business house for many customers since there is the advantage to detect the end-users requirement for their various needs.
In order to speed up communications and satisfy the customers need in a more efficient manner, in the 1980's the London office was established to deal with various European firms and at the same time the U.S. office was opened to become more or less the holding company of the group real estate properties.
The Near East Group also owns Ayla Aviation Academy which is based at King Hussein International Airport, Aqaba and the Atlantic Flight Training in Coventry/United Kingdom.