Jordan is one of the five richest countries in oil shale

www.chinaview.cn 2008-07-07 19:36:20

AMMAN, July 7 (Xinhua) --

Director General of Jordanian Natural Resources Authority (NRA) Maher Hijazin said on Monday that Jordan is considered one of the five richest countries in oil shale in the world.

"The kingdom's estimated reserves of this material is about 40 billion tonnes, which is expected to be doubled in the coming years," Hijazin said.

The comments were made during a meeting on "oil shale and power resources in Jordan" held at Amman Arab University for Graduate Studies.

Hijazin said the NRA has adopted a new strategy on oil shale since 2004, floating tenders, signing agreements with companies and requesting companies to provide studies on the extraction of oil shale.

So far, NRA has signed four memos of understanding with international companies to carry out technical and economic studies in preparation for extraction of the material.

Editor: Bi Mingxin

OPEC weekly prices surge over $138

www.chinaview.cn 2008-07-07 18:58:33

VIENNA, July 7 (Xinhua) --

The weekly average prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) surged 6.71 dollars higher to 138.31 U.S. dollars per barrel (dpb) last week, said the Vienna-based cartel Monday.

The daily prices steadily rose from 136.03 dpb Monday to 137.73 dpb Wednesday and surged 3 dollars higher in just one trading day, hit an all-time high of 140.73 dpb Thursday. The prices retreated slightly to 140.14 dpb Friday, remained however over 140 U.S. dollars.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil said Sunday that the current high oil prices were mainly due to the phenomena that have nothing to do with supply and demand.

He warned that the prices would rise again in the coming weeks, due to weak dollars, geopolitical problems and other reasons.

Experts pointed out that the tension of the Iran problem, consecutive devaluation of the U.S. dollars were main reasons leading to high prices. OPEC oil prices have risen about 50 percent since the beginning of this year.

Editor: Bi Mingxin

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.