Jordan’s Attarat power plant was envisioned as a landmark project promising to provide the desert kingdom with a major source of energy while solidifying its relations with China.
But weeks after its official opening, the site, a sea of black, crumbly rock in the barren desert south of Jordan’s capital, is instead a source of heated controversy. Deals surrounding the plant put Jordan on the hook for billions of dollars in debt to China – all for a plant that is no longer needed for its energy, because of other agreements made since the project’s conception.
The result is fueling tensions between China and Jordan and causing grief for the Jordanian government as it tries to contest the deal in an international legal battle. As Chinese influence grows in the Middle East and America withdraws, the $2.1 billion shale oil station has come to characterize China’s wider model that has burdened many Asian and African states with crippling debt and served as a cautionary tale for the region.
“Attarat is a representation of what the Belt and Road Initiative was and has become,” said Jesse Marks, a nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, referring to China’s scheme to build global infrastructure and boost Beijing’s political sway.
“Jordan evolves as an interesting case study not for China’s success in the region but for how China engages in middle-income countries,” he said.
First conceived some 15 years ago as a way to fulfill national ambitions of energy independence, the Attarat shale oil plant is now causing anger in Jordan because of its enormous price tag. If the original agreement holds, Jordan would have to pay China a staggering $8.4 billion over 30 years to buy the electricity generated by the plant.
Laborers flown from rural China toil in the shadow of the giant station, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Amman.
In May, Jordan’s telecommunications company Orange signed a new agreement for 5G equipment. It had long been a customer of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant under American sanctions.
This time, it chose Nokia.
