Attarat Mining Company Officially Opens its Oil Shale Laboratory
Attarat Mining Company (“AMCO”) today marked the official opening of its JOD2.0 million state-of-the-art oil shale testing laboratories at the Attarat Oil Shale Power Project site by Eng. Lana Marashdeh, Director of the Accreditation Department at Jordan Institution for Standards and Metrology (“JISM”). The official opening was also attended by senior officials from JISM, Attarat Power Company (“APCO”) and AMCO.
AMCO’s oil shale laboratory has been accredited by the Jordanian Accreditation System – Accreditation Unit (“JAS-AU”) for “Chemical Testing of Oil Shale” in accordance with the international standard ISO/IEC 17025:2017. JAS-AU is a full member of the international accreditation body, International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation.
Eng. Fatima Abaddi, AMCO’s Laboratory Lead said the laboratory is fully staffed and operated by Jordanians who has worked hard to achieve the accreditation. She highlighted that the oil shale laboratory is one of the most advanced in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and has commenced testing of oil shale from the Attarat mine which has an annual production capacity of c. 10 million tonnes. The establishment of the oil shale laboratory will help to understand the Jordanian oil shale better and open new opportunities for future development of the oil shale industry in Jordan.
Jordan has one of the largest oil shale deposits in the world which is estimated to be c. 70 billion tonnes.
APCO is constructing the first oil shale fired power station and open-cast mine in Jordan. The Project site is at Attarat um Ghudran, approximately 110 km south-east of Amman. The construction of the 470 MW (net) oil shale fired mine mouth power plant and mine opening works are currently in progress with the first unit scheduled to commence commercial operations in mid-2020.
The Project is the largest inward foreign investment into Jordan and creates more than 1,000 long term job opportunities for Jordanians. It is also the first project that utilize indigenous oil shale resource and is very important strategically in terms of energy security as it will contribute towards reducing Jordan’s reliance on imported gas.
AMCO is an affiliate of APCO responsible for the mine opening works during the construction period and for the supply of oil shale supply to the power plant during the operations period.
8 December 2019