Disi: buying Amman twenty-five years with fossil water

Jordan has 61 cubic metres of renewable fresh water a person a year.¹⁰ In 2002 the Amman–Zarqa basin was pumped at 137 MCM a year against an estimated safe yield of 65, and Azraq at 58 against 32.⁹ The largest untapped reserve for the capital lay about 300 km south.²⁷ It is the Saq–Ram sandstone, which Jordan calls Disi and which continues under Saudi Arabia.¹¹¹²

The water is largely fossil. Isotope data place most recharge 10,000 to 30,000 years ago, and the 2015 treaty describes the aquifer as having limited renewability.¹¹¹² The asymmetry matters as much as the age. The regional inventory puts Jordan’s storage at 4 to 10 billion cubic metres against about 740 billion in Saudi Arabia. Abstraction around Tabuk rose from about 29 MCM a year in 1983 to between 1,050 and 1,700 MCM in 2004.¹¹

Disi was not idle before the pipe. It had supplied Aqaba since the early 1980s.² From 1984 four agribusinesses rented land over it on licences renewable every five years, and one study found the contracts set no limit on extraction.¹⁴ The project’s own environmental assessment says the companies’ agreements capped abstraction at 91 MCM a year, and expected that use to end in 2011.⁸ The government publicly committed to withdrawing the concessions in 2009, then renewed them a year later.¹⁴

GAMA won the concession in 2007.² At award it was reported as a US$600 million project, with water sold to Jordan for 40 years.⁵ The financed deal was different: a 25-year build-operate-transfer concession, a 325 km pipeline and 55 wells in the Disi–Mudawwara area.¹ The project company, DIWACO, built and runs the scheme. The government pays a water tariff on a take-or-pay basis through the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ).¹⁶ WAJ sells the water on to Miyahuna, Amman’s distribution company.¹ Long-term operation and maintenance went to Disi Amman Operation Maintenance LLC, a Suez subsidiary.²

The sponsor at financial close was GAMA Energy, a joint venture of GAMA Holding and GE Energy Financial Services. GAMA put in about US$190 million and the ministry a US$300 million grant, while OPIC, the European Investment Bank and Proparco lent US$455 million.² OPIC’s loan was US$250 million and Proparco’s US$100 million.¹⁶ The EIB’s US$100 million was signed with the Jordanian government rather than the company.⁷ A later academic account gives other amounts, including US$166 million from the EIB.¹⁴ DIWACO’s site now lists one shareholder, GAMA Energy Water International B.V.⁴

Water quality was written into the lending. Disi water carries naturally occurring radium-226 and radium-228, and the lenders’ management plan required it to be blended at the Dabuk and Abu Alanda reservoirs. Above 0.5 millisieverts a year the ministry must remediate within 18 months. Above 1 mSv a year supply to the network must stop.⁹

The pipe was built and the water arrived. Construction ran from 2009 to 2013, and by 2017 the scheme met about 30 per cent of Amman’s needs.¹⁹ In 2015 the water minister put Disi at a quarter of the water needs of the capital and other governorates.²¹

The radium was managed. A 2009 Duke-led study found combined radium activity up to 2,000 per cent above international drinking-water standards.¹⁶ In full operation the well field averaged 0.7 mSv a year, about 1.4 times Jordan’s limit of 0.5. After inline blending, monthly sampling showed 0.4 mSv a year.¹⁷

The reallocation worked where it was enforced. When the pipeline was completed in 2013, the farms in the Mudawwara area were forced to close, and they were still closed in 2019.¹⁴ The 2015 agreement with Saudi Arabia then fixed a buffer. It creates a protected area of about 400 km² on each side of the border, to be cleared within five years of all activity that depends on groundwater. A wider management area of about 1,000 km² each side is limited to municipal use.¹²¹³ A game-theory study coupled to a regional aquifer model found the buffer avoids common-pool overdraft through at least 2075.¹⁵

The state also defended the contract. DIWACO claimed US$460 million, including interest, citing security and technical hardship during construction. In February 2018 the tribunal dismissed the claim save for about US$2.5 million. It ordered DIWACO to pay US$10 million in liquidated damages for delay and US$12 million of costs.²³²² An official quoted anonymously said the government had offered US$90 million to settle.²²

The delivered cost has never been published. The US lender’s disclosure confirms a take-or-pay tariff but not its level.¹ The closest public figure sits in the IMF’s water-sector tables. Staff estimated Disi water purchases at JD 68 million in 2023, projected to reach JD 78 million by 2030.²⁶ That line cannot be turned into a price per cubic metre, because neither the volume paid for nor what the payment covers is published beside it. This case does not state a cost per cubic metre.

The payments have strained the buyer. In 2018 the World Bank reported that finance-ministry transfers to WAJ were irregular, so payables to the BOT companies built up. The Disi company, it added, was struggling to pay its electricity bills, with a shutdown possible.²⁷ By 2023 the Bank put the Disi PPP’s contingent liabilities at US$2,467 million and its cost of capital at 8.1 per cent.²⁸ Energy is structural too. The national strategy names pumping from Disi to Amman as a reason the sector’s electricity costs are so high.²⁹

Annual deliveries are not published in any source found. The figures in circulation differ: 100 MCM by design, and a pumping capacity of 112 MCM cited by an official in 2019.¹²⁴ One study cites a ministry figure of 125 MCM a year more in municipal and industrial abstraction.¹⁴ Physical security costs water. Sabotage at a Mudawwara facility cut pumping by 11 per cent in July 2019.²⁴ The ministry recorded 780 attacks on the system from January to May 2026, 321 in June and 343 in July.²⁵

The aquifer has no volume limit. The 2015 agreement imposes no numerical cap on extraction; it manages distance, not quantity.¹³ Estimates of its life disagree. MEED reported about 50 years.¹⁹ Ministry statements have ranged from 80 MCM a year for 50 years to 100 MCM a year for 200 years.¹⁴ The regional inventory, written in 2013, warned the exploitable part may be exhausted within 30 to 40 years unless abstraction is controlled on both sides.¹¹ A monitoring well in the area showed the rate of decline rising tenfold in 2013.¹⁴

The farm closures were partial. Farms near Disah town kept operating, including those of the Rum company, which was told to cut its use from 35 to 15 MCM a year. Satellite images do not show whether it complied. The ministry put pre-closure extraction at 30 to 35 MCM a year, a figure supplied by the companies themselves.¹⁴

The radium record is contested as well. Reported peaks run from 10 to 20 times EU guidelines to 30 times WHO thresholds.¹⁴¹⁸ Blending most likely spreads cancer cases across more people rather than reducing them, one study argues.¹⁴ The 0.4 mSv result comes from a paper led by Hazim El-Naser, the water minister in office.¹⁷²²

Even the basic record varies. The ministry launched the scheme in July 2013, while DIWACO dates commercial operation to 2014.²⁰⁴ No source found gives the handover date.

The successor is contracted but not yet financed. The Aqaba–Amman carrier is to desalinate 300 MCM a year and pump it 438 km to the capital, by MIGA’s account.³⁰ The April 2026 announcement gave 450 km, a capital cost of US$4.3 billion or US$5.8 billion with financing, and financial close in July. Ownership reverts to the state after 26 years of operation.³² That July date passed. In August 2026 the cabinet approved a further US$97 million from the French development agency to support the close.³¹ Total project cost is also put at US$6 billion.³³ In July 2026 the US government still listed financial close as due in 2026, with operations by 2030.³⁴ No source found confirms that close has been reached.

Three lessons transfer. First, publish the price. The carrier’s benchmark tariff was reported at about US$2.7 a cubic metre, down from about US$3 in 2024.³² Disi’s has never been disclosed, so nobody outside government can compare the bridge with what follows it.

Second, a take-or-pay contract is only as strong as the treasury behind the buyer. Within five years of first water, Disi’s payments had become payables and a shutdown risk.²⁷ The World Bank’s own lever for the carrier is cheaper capital. Cutting it from Disi’s 8.1 per cent to 5 per cent would save JD 1,015 million in lease payments.²⁸

Third, a fossil scheme needs its end written in at the start: a volume cap, published monitoring and a dated successor. Disi got the successor and a buffer zone, but no cap.¹³ The national strategy still carries non-renewable Disi groundwater as a supply line in its projections to 2040.²⁹ A country that pumps a fossil aquifer without a limit is not managing water. It is spending it.