OREANDA-NEWS. November 11, 2014. Attarat Power Company (APCO) announced that it has signed the EPC contract with Guangdong Power Engineering Corporation (GPEC) to construct Jordan's first oil shale fired power plant. Foster Wheeler will provide the circulating fluidised bed boiler island, Siemens on the steam turbine generator and Worley Parsons on the plant design.

GPEC was selected after an international competitive tender to perform the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the 554 MW (gross) mine mouth oil shale fired power plant under a fixed price turnkey contract. The EPC contract was signed after APCO finalized negotiations with the Government of Jordan regarding the 30-year Power Purchase Agreement which was signed in the beginning of October 2014.

Construction of the power plant is expected to commence over the course of the following 12 months after conducting financing due diligence and finalising the funding arrangements. The power plant is scheduled to start generating electricity for local consumption in the second half of 2018.

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 Berhad of Malaysia and Near East Investments Limited of Jordan.

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 61,000 MW of power plants globally.