AMMAN, June 11 (Xinhua) -- The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) on Monday announced scrapping a deal with Russia worth 10 billion U.S. dollars for building Jordan's first nuclear power plant as the Russians requested securing the necessary finance for the project via commercial loans.
"Jordan and Russia held a meeting last year to discuss means to move forward with the project and how to secure necessary finance for the plant," JAEC said in a statement.
"The Russians requested getting loans from commercial banks, which will increase the cost of the project and the prices of generated electricity, which the Jordanian government rejected," JAEC said.
The commercial loans will make the prices of electricity generated via nuclear plants uncompetitive and therefore the deal was scrapped, JAEC said.
JAEC said the Jordanian government did not incur any financial losses of legal issues due to scrapping the deal.
The deal, signed with Russia in 2015, entailed building two nuclear reactors with total capacity of 2,000 megawatts. The deal envisaged the construction of a two-unit power plant at Amra in the north of the kingdom by 2022.
Last month, JAEC and Russia's state-owned Rosatom Overseas signed a deal Saturday to conduct a joint feasibility study for building a Russian-designed Small Modular Reactor in Jordan (SMRs).
Building on the cooperation and studies performed for a large nuclear power plant, Russia and Jordan have decided to intensify and step up their cooperation in building SMRs.
Jordan, which imports 97 percent of its energy needs, is working on a national strategy to diversify its energy resources.
