OREANDA-NEWS. August 22, 2007. Northwest Oil Group, an oil and gas production and transportation company in Russia, said Wednesday it intended to bid in a tender to upgrade or rebuild an oil refinery in Jordan.

"The oil refinery that Jordan now has was built a long time ago. Naturally, it has become outdated, and therefore the country's authorities have decided either to build a new refinery or modernize the old one," said Ernest Malyshev, the company's CEO.

Malyshev said Jordanian authorities would soon announce a tender for to either build a new refinery or to upgrade the existing one, and that Northwest Oil Group, established in 2004 in St. Petersburg and with a current market capitalization of around $250 million, would participate in it.

"The amount of funds we preliminarily plan to invest in the Jordan project is about $850 million, but this sum will be invested in the case of the refinery's modernization. Its capacity would remain the same - 500,000 metric tons [3.67 million barrels] of oil per year," the chief executive said.

Malyshev said the existing refinery's capacity was a small volume for the Mideast state, home to around six million, and the company believed it would be better to build a new facility rather than modernize the old one. If Jordanian authorities agree to this, the amount of investment will depend on the refining volume, he said.