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Ammon News - Ammon News- Economic Affairs Editor- Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company (JPRC) revealed that it is holding a face-to-face meeting with the Chinese and Japanese coalition members in March, with the company's advisors present, to agree on a mechanism for completing all technical and financial matters to reach the stage of implementing the 4th expansion of the refinery.

The planning for the meeting comes after the company, in coordination with all project consultants, completed providing the consortium with the best offer, consisting of Italian, Chinese and Japanese companies, with the necessary information to fill out the necessary financing application forms for submission to export finance agencies.

The company stated within its future plans, which were stated in its annual financial statements and which Ammon reviewed, that the Italian company, "one of the members of the coalition," requested an increase in the price of the submitted offer, which constituted a violation of what was agreed upon and the conditions of the tender, so that increasing the price after opening the tender offers is considered a violation of the company’s regulations.

After several sessions and communications with the Italian company to try to dissuade it from this approach, but the company insisted on its position on the price and accordingly it was informed of not accepting the request to increase prices and remove the Italian company from the coalition, JPRC's indicated.

The oil refinery confirmed that the other two companies in the consortium, the Chinese and Japanese, have expressed their interest in continuing to bid and working to cover the gap resulting from the exit of that company.

The JPRC informed the two coalition members of its agreement to complete negotiations with them and set the necessary conditions to take them into consideration to continue.

Regarding Japanese financing, the company revealed that the Japanese Financing Agency obtained approval from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to finance the company’s project, while financing through the Japanese Financing Agency is still under study by the Japanese Ministry of Finance.

During 2023, the company paid JD4.092 million in payments for technical, financial, legal and environmental services and consultations for the 4th expansion project.

Earlier, the company announced the completion of the negotiation stage with the consortium with the best offer, which is a consortium consisting of an Italian, Chinese and Japanese company (Technimont-Sinopec (GPEC) - Itochu), and that moving forward in the negotiation process is subject to exemptions from taxes and government fees that the consortium requests to sign the contract.

The company is also still following up with the relevant government agencies to obtain exemptions from taxes and government fees required by the consortium so that it can conclude the project implementation contract.

It should be noted that according to the latest market studies carried out by the American company 'Wood Mackenzie', which previously prepared the market study, it showed an improvement in the prices of petroleum derivatives. Accordingly, it was tasked with updating the price forecasts, PricingForecast, in the market study, and accordingly the financial model was updated, which led to a noticeable improvement in the internal rate of return (IRR) for the project.

It is noteworthy that the 4th expansion project will enable the refinery to refine 120,000 barrels of Arab Light crude oil per day.