Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq held talks in Cairo on the development of the Basra-Aqaba oil pipeline project, Jordanian Energy Ministry informed in a statement.

The project was agreed by the Oil Ministries of the three countries in Amman in November 2015. Jordanian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ibrahim Saif, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla, and Iraq’s Oil Minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, sought to re-activate the 2015 Memorandum of Understanding.

The Jordanian-Iraqi oil pipeline and the parallel gas pipeline, constitute an ambitious project for its role in achieving integration and enhancing energy security between the two countries after moving toward implementing the project when concluding related technical studies, the statement said.

According to the MoU, Jordan is to benefit from Iraqi crude oil and liquefied gas to meet its needs of oil products and natural gas and generate electricity, informed Zawya. The Iraqi government had approved an additional route for implementing the project, situated near the Saudi border and provided the project with additional features, notably the reduction of the distance of the pipeline, which will carry the crude oil, therefore reducing the project costs.