Ensour: Promising amounts of gas near border with Iraq

National Petroleum Company Chairman Abdul Razzaq Ensour told parliament on Sunday that Iraqi experts had informed Jordanian authorities of an underground gas leak from the Kingdom's southern Risheh Basin into the desert border area east of Safawi. He said during the Lower House's Financial Committee debate of electricity and nuclear energy budgets that there are "promising" quantities of gas in the border region, but said the company's three dilapidated drills needed maintenance "in order to move from exploration into extraction of gas." Ensour said his cash-strapped company had been marginalized and needed government support to accomplish its tasks, noting that a project to build a marine gas storage facility in the Gulf of Aqaba was launched without the company being posted although it had jurisdiction on it. Some lawmaker proposed that part of a Gulf Arab states' grant be allocated to bankroll the company. Also during the meeting, Jordan Nuclear Energy Commission President Khaled Touqan said his agency had settled on a new site for the Kingdom's first nuclear reactor, which will be built east of Mowaqqar in the Kingdom's southeastern desert region.