OREANDA-NEWS. December 31, 2013. Attarat Power Company (APCO) announced that it has made an electricity tariff proposal to the Goverment of Jordan after having selected an EPC contractor for the Kingdom's first oil shale fired power plant.

Andres Anijalg, Chairman of APCO, stated, “Making a firm electricity tariff proposal to NEPCO marks a crucial milestone towards establishing a source of power generation for Jordan that will rely on the Kingdom’s own deposits of oil shale. The project will enable Jordan to start benefitting for the first time from its abundant oil shale resources.”

APCO has selected Guangdong Power Engineering Corporation (GPEC) to lead the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the 540 MW (gross) mine mouth oil shale fired power plant under a fixed price turnkey contract. Foster Wheeler will provide the circulating fluidised bed boiler island, Siemens on the steam turbine generator and Worley Parsons on the plant design. GPEC is a 100% subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned China Energy Engineering Group, one of China’s leading construction and engineering conglomerates, which has constructed some 53,000 MW of power plants globally.

“The same technological solutions which minimise environmental impacts have already been proven in the world?s largest oil shale fired power plants in Estonia.” noted Andres Anijalg.

The power station and open cast mine will be project financed. APCO has mandated Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, supported by China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure), to arrange USD1,4 billion of debt financing.

Construction of the power plant will begin after reaching agreement with the Government and finalising the financing. The power plant is scheduled to start generating electricity for local consumption in the second half of 2017. The power plant is expected to reduce the Kingdom’s expenditure on the import of oil products for power generation by more than JD350 million per annum, in addition to creating 3500 jobs during construction and 1000 jobs during operations.

Attarat Power Company is indirectly owned by Enefit (Eesti Energia AS), YTL Power International Bhd of Malaysia and Near East Investments Limited of Jordan.