BP close to signing Jordan gas field deal

AMMAN (Reuters) - BP Plc (BP.L) will sign a deal with Jordan on Sunday to explore for natural gas reserves in the small Risha field near the border with Iraq, company and government officials said on Saturday.

They said under the deal the British company would enter partnership with the government owned National Petroleum Company (NPC) in two phases to boost the field that currently produces around 20 million cubic feet per day.

The oil major would spend $237 million on exploration and evaluation of the Risha block, which covers an area of 7,000 square km, in the first three to four year phase of the deal, the officials added.

If the exploration leads to the discovery of large commercially viable reserves of natural gas, officials said BP would enter a second phase to invest billions of dollars in the field.

Risha, which was discovered in 1987, has not delivered encouraging exploration results in the past but Jordanian officials are hopeful intensive drilling could reveal extensive recoverable gas reserves.

(Writing by Suleiman al-Khalidi; editing by Patrick Graham)