Jordan

Despite bordering oil and gas powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Jordan has traditionally been regarded as having little in the way of energy resources of its own, and the country currently remains overwhelmingly reliant on imports. This reliance has in recent years been the source of growing political, economic and strategic problems for the...

Amman has seen rapid population growth since becom-ing Jordan’s capital. Between 1996 and 2012 alone, the number of residents rose by 48% from 1.67m to 2.47m, according to data from the Department of Sta-tistics. Increased population has brought with it more pressure on the city’s transport infrastructure. Although the municipality has worked to...

To many regional investors, Jordan’s neighbour to the north-east – Iraq – has long been a glittering, if elu-sive, prize. With the world’s largest proven oil reserves at 350bn barrels and a population of 33m, Iraq is a major market on Jordan’s doorstep. Yet years of conflict and occupation have made steady nerves a requirement. For many years...

Despite being regarded as energy-resource-poor, Jordan purportedly has vast reserves of oil shale, which can be processed into synthetic crude oil or burned directly for electricity production. Extraction is comparatively expensive, but global energy prices are making production of resources economically viable, and three oil shale concessions are...