Jordan and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are expected to sign commercial and legal agreements this month to build a double pipeline to supply Jordan with crude oil and natural gas
Majid Saadi, president of Iraqi Business Council (IBC), said that a tender to construct the US$18bn project would float in March, adding that international developers from the US, Canada, China and Germany were interested in building the pipeline.
The pipeline would run from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq's Basra region to Anbar province and then to Jordan’s port city of Aqaba for exportation, Saadi said.
The 1,680 km pipeline, built to export 2.25mn bpd through Jordan, will generate an estimated US$2-3bn a year of revenues for the Kingdom, he added.
The double pipeline may include extending a sub-line to Jordan’s sole refinery in Zarqa, according to Jordanian and Iraqi officials.
Jawad Abbas, Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, said in an interview with a news daily last week that the project may include the possibility of constructing another refinery in Aqaba, 320 km south of Amman, with a capacity of refining 300,000 bpd. There is also the possibility of establishing a special port in the city for the purpose of exporting oil.
