“Encouraging signs of oil” were discovered in the southern region of the Dead Sea, a senior official in Trans Global Petroleum (TGP) Jordan confirmed to the Jordan Times. TGP Jordan thus decided to re-dig the exploratory Issal-1 oil field in the Ghour Safi region, whose drilling cost has so far exceeded three million dollars.
Owned by the Houston-based Trans Global Petroleum Exploration Company, TGP Jordan officially opened the exploratory well Issal-1 in the end of July. The company leased an electromechanical drilling rig from the local Petra Drilling Company to dig at Issal-1, which will run more anywhere between 2,500 and 5,000 meters in search of oil.
Issal-1 will be the third deepest exploratory well to be drilled in the Dead Sea and the first in seven years, according to a statement by the US firm. It took the company four years of intensive geological and geophysical surveys in the region before deciding whether Issal-1 is worth exploring.
In 1996, Jordan’s Natural Resources Authority (NRA) signed an exploration and production sharing agreement with the American company, to drill for oil in the Dead Sea and Wadi Araba regions, with the hope of alleviating the kingdom’s dependence on Iraq.
Iraq is the Kingdom's only source of oil and oil derivatives, which amounts to five million tons a year. Jordan receives half of its oil from Iraq for free, while the remaining portion is sold to the kingdom at a concession price, four to five dollars less than the world market price.
The Jordanian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Mohammed Batayneh met with the Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid in Baghdad earlier this month discuss to discuss the renewal of the annual $600 million oil protocol, the Jordanian Petra news agency reported. "The Jordanian-Iraqi oil protocol for the year 2002 will increase by five to 10 percent, given Jordan's growth in oil demand," Batayneh was quoted as saying ahead of the visit.
Batayneh was also to discuss the construction of a pipeline that will transfer oil from Iraq to Jordan. The $600 million proposed link is expected to replace the current way of transporting oil to Jordan, which depends on petrol trucks. — (menareport.com)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
