Jordan's National Resources Authority (NRA) will sign a $540m deal with the UK/Dutch Shell Group on 17 May for deep oil shale exploration as the first part of a deal that could attract $50bn of investment to the country.
The two sides first signed a headline agreement in 2006, creating expectations that an exploration deal would follow (MEED 3:3:09).
NRA's director general Maher Hijazin told the state-run Petra news agency on 13 May that the authority will split the deal into four phases: exploration, assessment, operations and design.
Hijazin says the drilling phase will run for three-and-a-half-years and will cover a 22,000-kilometre concession.
Shell will spend $340m on the deal along with $200m in bonuses to Jordan's government,
and will then meet the NRA to make a final investment decision on the scheme.
Hijazin says direct investment in the project could range between $30bn and $50bn over a 15 to 20-year period.
Under the agreement, Shell will use its own patented conversion process which involves heating the ground over several years to extract oil shale in the form of crude.
Jordan has the world's fourth-largest reserves of oil shale with 40 billion tonnes, but it currently imports 95 per cent of its energy needs (MEED 17:7:08).
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