Ammon News - AMMAN (Petra) - Saleh Irsheidat, Secretary General of the Arab Renewable Energy Commission, has said the high oil bill in Jordan has negatively affected the country’s economy. He noted that the ever-increasing size of the bill could be attributed to importation of ready-made oil products, inadequate oil futures contracts, and changes in the management and leadership of the oil sector which led to inconsistent decision-making on the energy issue.

While delivering a lecture on Wednesday, titled "Energy Challenges on the National Economy: Jordan as an Example", Irsheidat said the Jordanian government’s policies did not consider energy as a highly sensitive and important national security issue, which resulted in the absence of a futuristic institutional vision that could raise awareness of the big shifts expected in the energy sector.

He pointed out that not enough attention was paid to the development of the means to transport crude oil to Jordan, or even to find alternatives to oil, which triggered the energy crisis in the country.