OREANDA-NEWS. September 06, 2010. Jordan's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khalid Irani and the head of the country's department for resources, Maher Hijazin, will visit Estonia later this week to look at shale oil refining and oil shale powered electricity production in this country. 

During the visit from Thursday to Friday the minister and his delegation will look at the existing shale oil production facilities of Eesti Energia and the Enefit-280 refinery currently being built. They will also visit other companies of the Eesti Energia group, such as mines, power plants and facilities of technology industry, spokespeople for Eesti Energia said.

On the second day of the visit the Jordanian minister will meet with Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and Minister of Economy and Communications Juhan Parts.

The state-owned Eesti Energia group in May this year signed a concession agreement with the Jordanian government for utilizing the resources of the Attarat Um Ghudran oil shale deposit in Jordan during 50 years. Eesti Energia's 38 square kilometer concession area contains an estimated over two billion tons of oil shale and under certain conditions it can be extended to cover an area containing an estimated four billion tons.

Basing on the concession agreement, Eesti Energia is developing two projects in Jordan: a shale oil factory with a daily capacity of 38,000 barrels and an oil shale-fired power plant with a capacity of 900 megawatts.

If all goes to plan, the power plant will start generating electricity in 2016 and the oil factory will start production in 2017, the power company said in May.