Jordan’s energy diplomacy: The power of being in between

Jordan does not have Saudi Arabia’s oil, Qatar’s gas or Iraq’s hydrocarbon wealth. It does, however, possess another asset that is becoming increasingly valuable on the Middle East’s energy map: location.

Jordan’s 2025–2035 Energy Strategy, approved by the government on 3rd May 2026, is built around this reality. Its logic is simple but strategic: if a country cannot become a major energy producer, it can use geography, diversification and interconnection to reduce vulnerability and expand its room for manoeuvre.This is the power of being in between.

Jordan sits at the intersection of the Levant, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula and the eastern Mediterranean. Geography alone does not generate power. But when electricity grids, pipelines and energy infrastructure connect across borders, location can be transformed from a geographic fact into a strategic asset.

Amman’s ambition, therefore, should not be overstated as the emergence of another Middle Eastern “energy hub”. A more accurate interpretation is that of a resource-constrained state pursuing geopolitical de-risking through energy diversification and interconnection.

The goal is not independence, but distributed dependence

The core of Jordan’s strategy lies in a paradox: Amman cannot eliminate its dependence on the regional energy environment, but it can distribute that dependence across multiple partners, sources and routes.

This is a form of asymmetric interdependence. Jordan will continue to require external energy and capital, but the more options it develops, the less vulnerable it becomes to disruption from any single supplier or corridor.

The new strategy applies the same logic domestically. Renewables are targeted to account for 40 per cent of electricity generation by 2035. At the same time, the government plans to increase production from the Risha gas field to 418 million cubic feet per day by 2029 and 812 million by 2035, while connecting the field to the Arab Gas Pipeline by 2029.

These are not merely production targets. They are part of Amman’s attempt to expand Jordan’s portfolio of energy options.

East, south and west: Building a network of options

To the east, the Jordan-Iraq electricity interconnection has already taken its first operational step. Since March 2024, Jordan has supplied around 40 MW of electricity to Iraq’s Al-Rutba area. A subsequent phase, through the 400-kV Risha-Al-Qaim line, is designed for approximately 150–200 MW.

To the south lies the planned Jordan-Saudi electricity interconnection, envisaged at around 500 MW initially and potentially 1,000 MW later. It is not yet a fully operational corridor, but its significance goes beyond electricity trading. Differences in peak-demand hours between the two systems create opportunities for load balancing and peak sharing, increasing grid flexibility on both sides.

To the west, Jordan has long been electrically interconnected with Egypt, with both countries seeking to expand exchange capacity. Aqaba’s LNG infrastructure provides another layer of supply diversification.

Put these connections on a map and the strategic logic becomes clearer: Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean to the west, and Syria and Lebanon to the north.

Jordan is positioning itself within this emerging network not as a dominant power, but potentially as a cross-border balancing node.

Israeli gas: The other side of interdependence

Yet Jordan’s energy architecture has a politically sensitive dimension that cannot be ignored: Israeli gas.Jordan imports natural gas from Israel’s Leviathan field under a long-term agreement. These supplies have contributed to Jordan’s energy security and power generation, but they have also created political and strategic dependence, particularly as Jordan-Israel relations face intense domestic and regional pressure over Gaza and the Palestinian question.

Here lies the fundamental limitation of connectivity as power: networks can create vulnerabilities as readily as they create options.

Seen from this perspective, expanding Risha and increasing the share of renewables are not merely industrial or environmental policies. They also give Amman greater strategic room to manage external shocks and reduce excessive exposure to any single foreign supplier.

Jordan’s energy diplomacy is therefore not about maximising connectivity at any cost. It is about finding a workable balance between interconnection and diversification.

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Syria and Lebanon: Where infrastructure meets politics

Jordan’s northern flank provides a more difficult test.

On 20th November 2025, the energy ministers of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon met in Amman to discuss reviving cooperation on electricity and gas. Jordan expressed readiness to help meet part of Syria’s and Lebanon’s energy needs, while the three sides agreed to assess electricity infrastructure and the Arab Gas Pipeline.

But possessing a transmission line is not the same as possessing a commercially viable energy corridor.

Syria’s and Lebanon’s energy systems continue to face technical, financial and institutional constraints. External financing and reconstruction could ease some of these obstacles, but experience demonstrates that engineering is only half the equation. Politics, capital and security determine the other half.For Jordan, this is itself a lesson in energy diplomacy. Every cross-border connection creates contracts, tariffs, technical standards, financing arrangements and a need for sustained political dialogue.

Infrastructure, in other words, can bind foreign policy to geography.

Risha: From dependence to strategic optionality

Within this framework, developing the Risha gas field means more than increasing domestic production.

If plans to expand output and connect Risha to the Arab Gas Pipeline are realised, a network historically associated largely with importing and transmitting gas could become more flexible.

That matters because Jordan’s future relevance in the regional energy architecture may depend less on how much energy it produces than on how many options it can command.

In such a model, energy security is no longer synonymous with self-sufficiency. It means having alternative sources, routes and partners when one becomes unavailable.

For Amman, therefore, networks are not instruments of hegemony. They are a form of geopolitical insurance.

Aqaba and the bet on a greener future

Green hydrogen represents the longer-term dimension of this strategy.

Jordan’s new energy strategy envisages commercial green hydrogen production beginning in 2030 and reaching around half a million tonnes annually by 2035. Aqaba’s location, combined with Jordan’s expanding renewable-energy capacity, could eventually give the kingdom a role in green hydrogen and ammonia export chains.But ambition should not be confused with achievement.

Green hydrogen requires enormous capital investment, cheap renewable electricity, export infrastructure and long-term buyers. Aqaba is not yet an established hydrogen hub. Jordan is placing a bet on what the future energy market may become.

The same caution is necessary when assessing Jordan’s wider strategy. Amman cannot become another Saudi Arabia or Qatar, nor would such an ambition be realistic. Its strategy is less about projecting energy power than about managing structural constraints.

Geopolitical insurance, not energy hegemony

Jordan is not building hegemony through these networks. It is attempting to manage vulnerability.

Every new interconnection adds another option. If one supplier or route is disrupted, another may absorb part of the shock. Jordan’s objective is not energy independence in the classical sense; it is to distribute dependence.

Amman is seeking to place electricity links with Iraq and Egypt, a prospective interconnection with Saudi Arabia, northern routes through Syria, domestic gas from Risha, LNG, imported gas from the west and, eventually, green energy within a more flexible portfolio.

The strategy is not without contradictions. Every new connection can create a new dependence, while capital constraints, war, domestic politics and regional instability can delay projects that appear logical on a map.

Yet the strategic logic is clear: Jordan is trying to manage its resource constraints while converting geographic position into strategic leverage.

The power of being in between

In the Middle East’s emerging energy order, power will not belong exclusively to states that produce the most oil and gas.

Some of it will accrue to countries that can connect networks, create alternative routes, distribute their dependencies and raise the cost of excluding themselves from the region’s evolving energy architecture.

Jordan has not yet achieved such a position, and the success of many of its projects remains uncertain. But the direction of travel is discernible: Amman is attempting to transform geography from a static condition into an instrument of statecraft.

If Jordan’s energy power does emerge, it will not be the power of possessing resources. It will be the power of being in between.

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