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The new power plant will have a capacity of approximately 460MW and will be located at the Attarat um Ghudran oil shale deposit approximately 100km south east of Amman, writes LETA.

Last month Enefit reached agreement with the Jordanian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and the National Electric Power Company on the terms of the project contracts which allows the tendering process for the main engineering, procurement and construction of the new power plant to commence. The tender will be completed by end of 2012 and the next stage of project development will be project financing in 2013.

The new power plant will have two oil shale-fired power units (2x 230MW) and will consume ca 8 million tonnes of oil shale per year. Using oil shale as energy source means a fundamental shift for Jordan on a road to become an energy-independent country and 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.

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 a concession over the mining area in July 2010.