Jordan, Shell in talks to extract oil from huge shale reserves

AMMAN (AFP) – Energy-poor Jordan said on Sunday it was in talks with Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell on an agreement to extract oil from the desert kingdom’s 40-billion-tonne oil shale reserves.

“Negotiations with Shell to sign a deal to process oil shale in Jordan are nearing an end,” said Maher Hjazin, head of the state-run Natural Resources Authority.


“If our plans succeed, it would be one of the country’s largest projects to help the Jordan become energy self-sufficient, with a possibility to export oil in the future.”

Jordan, which imports 95 per cent of its energy needs and struggling to meet growing needs, has the world’s fourth largest reserves of oil shale, from which petroleum can be extracted by distillation.

Hjazin told the Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) that Estonia’s state-owned energy company Eesti Energia has completed a feasibility study for plans to produce 36,000 barrels a day of oil from oil shale.

Estonia produces all its energy from oil shale reserves in the Baltic state.

AFP