The US government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) announced on 17 September the approval of $270mn in financing for the construction of a 240mw power plant in Jordan to provide reliable energy during peak usage periods. OPIC said that AES Levant Holdings BV Jordan (AES Jordan), an affiliate of Virginia-based AES Corporation, will use the OPIC investment guaranty to build and operate a tri-fuel power plant on an unused portion of the ‘Amman East Power project site 15 miles outside ‘Amman.
The AES Jordan venture is owned by AES and Japan’s Mitsui, and has already built a $300mn, 380mw capacity combined cycle gas turbine plant at the ‘Amman East Power site under Jordan’s first independent power project (IPP), which was inaugurated in 2009 (MEES, 2 November 2009). OPIC provided a $70mn loan to this project in January 2007. The plant was intended to run on natural gas supplied by Egypt via the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP), but can also run on diesel. This has proved useful since the supply from Egypt has dwindled and become increasingly erratic since the overthrow of the Husni Mubarak regime in early 2011. (CONTINUED - 538 WORDS)
