一座陷入困境的新發電廠令約旦欠中國債務，引發對北京影響力的擔憂 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

A troubled new power plant leaves Jordan in debt to China, raising concerns over Beijing's influence (1/2)

Wed, July 5, 2023 at 6:36 a.m. PDT

ATTARAT, Jordan (AP) — 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.

When Shi Changqing arrived in the Jordanian desert earlier this year from the Jilin province in China’s northeast, fears were mounting in the workers’ dormitories that the project could grind to a halt, leaving everyone in the lurch, the 36-year-old welder said.

“It’s very strange to feel that, being from China, you are not wanted here,” he said.

With its meager natural resources in a region awash with oil and gas, Jordan seemed to have drawn a losing ticket. Then in the 2000s, it struck shale oil trapped in the black rock that underlies the country. With the fourth-largest concentration of shale oil in the world, Jordan had high hopes for a big pay-off.

In 2012, the Jordanian Attarat Power Company proposed to the government to extract shale oil from the desert and build a plant using it to provide 15% of the country’s electricity supply. The proposal fit the government’s intensifying desire for energy self-sufficiency amid the turmoil of the 2011 Arab uprisings, company officials say.

But extraction proved expensive, risky and technologically challenging. As the project lagged, Jordan struck a $15 billion agreement to import vast amounts of natural gas at competitive prices from Israel in 2014. Interest in Attarat waned.

Attarat Power Co. board member Mohammed Maaitah said he pitched the project the world over — from the United States and Europe to Japan and South Korea. No one bit, he said.

To Jordan’s surprise, Chinese banks offered Jordan over $1.6 billion in loans to finance the plant in 2017. A Chinese state-owned firm, Guangdong Energy Group, bought a 45% stake in the Attarat Power Co., turning the white elephant into the largest private enterprise to come out of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative outside China, according to the company.

Guangdong Energy Group did not respond to requests for comment.

(to be continued)

Translation

約旦阿塔拉特（美聯社）- 約旦阿塔拉特發電廠被設想為一個里程碑式的項目，承諾為這個沙漠王國提供主要能源，同時鞏固與中國的關係。

但在正式開放幾週後，這個位於約旦首都南部貧瘠沙漠中一片黑色易碎岩石帶的地點卻引發了激烈的爭議。 圍繞該工廠的交易讓約旦背負了數十億美元的債務 - 所有這些都是為了一座不再需要其能源的工廠，因為自該工廠項目構想以來,已有其他協議達成了。

其結果加劇了中國和約旦之間的緊張關係，並因為約旦政府試圖在國際法律訴訟中對該協議提出異議而給約旦政府帶來了哀傷。 隨著中國在中東影響力的增強和美國的撤出，耗資21億美元的頁岩油站已成為中國更廣泛模式的特徵，這種模式給許多亞洲和非洲國家帶來了沉重的債務負擔，並成為該地區的警示故事。

華盛頓Stimson中心的非常駐研究員Jesse Marks說： “阿塔拉特代表了 ‘一帶一路’ 倡議的過去和現在的模樣” 。他指的是中國建設全球基礎設施和增強北京政治影響力的計劃。

他說: “約旦成為一個有趣的研究案例，不是因為中國在該地區的成功，而是因為中國如何與中等收入國家打交道” 。

大約 15 年前，阿塔拉特頁岩油工廠最初被構想為實現國家能源獨立雄心的一種方式，但現在因其高昂的價格而引起了約旦的憤怒。 如果依從最初的協議，約旦將不得不在30年內向中國支付驚人的84億美元，以購買該工廠產生的電力。

從中國農村飛來的勞工在安曼以南約 100 公里（60 英里）處的巨型駐紮地的暗影下辛勤勞作。

36 歲的焊工Shi Changqing說，今年早些時候，當他從中國東北的吉林省抵達約旦沙漠時，宿舍裡工人越來越擔心該項目可能會陷入停滯，讓每個人都陷入困境。

他說: “你來自中國，這裡不受歡迎，這種感覺很奇怪” 。

約旦處於一個到處都已有石油和天然氣豐富的環境，但因自然資源貧乏，它似乎已經抽了下簽。 然後在 2000 年代，它開採了該國地下黑色岩石中的頁岩油。 約旦擁有世界第四大頁岩油集中地，對獲得豐厚回報寄予厚望。

2012年，約旦阿塔拉特電力公司向政府提議從沙漠中提取頁岩油並建造一座工廠，用它提供該國15%的電力供應。 公司官員表示，該提案符合政府因在 2011 年阿拉伯起義的動盪而引出要增強能源自給自足的願望。

但事實證明，提取成本昂貴、風險大且技術上具有挑戰性。 由於該項目滯後，約旦於 2014 年達成了一項價值 150 億美元的協議，以具有競爭力的價格從以色列進口大量天然氣。人們對阿塔拉特的興趣逐漸減弱。

阿塔拉特發電廠董事會成員Mohammed Maaitah表示，他在世界各地推銷該項目 - 從美國、歐洲到日本和韓國。 他說沒有人要。

令約旦驚訝的是，中國的銀行在 2017 年向約旦提供了超過 16 億美元的貸款，為該工廠融資。據該公司稱，中國國有企業廣東能源集團購買了阿塔拉特電力公司 45% 的股份，將這頭白像變成了由中國國家主席習近平的 “一帶一路” 倡議走出的最大的私人公司。

廣東能源集團沒有回應置評請求。

（待續）