The Iraqi Transport Ministry said on Wednesday that the designs for Grand al-Faw port will be ready in less than a year.

AKnews reports that the statements said that all the necessary preparations have been made to initiate the construction of the port including the financial allocations and the technical and engineering staffing.

Iraq announced its intention to build the port in 2005 and the foundation stone was laid in April 2010. But Kuwait took advantage of the delay in progress to announce the construction of Mubarak Port, just a few kilometers away from the al-Faw site, throwing doubt on the economic feasibility of the Iraqi port.

Al-Faw will cost approximately $5 billion and will have an estimated capacity of 99 million tons per year making it one of the largest ports in the Persian Gulf.

An Italian company will implement the project and has begun working on the designs of the port.

“The Ministry is serious about building the port immediately after the completion of its own designs. The ministry has provided all the requirements needed for the establishment of the port especially with regard to the financial allocations.”

(Source: AKnews)

Al-Iraqiya television has reported that Iraq is threatening to take the case of Kuwait’s Mubarak al-Kabir Port to the United Nations if the harbour violates its maritime rights.

An Iraqi Technical Delegation, led by the government’s Advisor, Thamer al-Ghadban, reportedly arrived in Kuwait on Sunday for a 2-day official visit.

Bloomberg reports that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in an interview with Al Sumeria television, has officially requested that its neighbour halts construction until the end of Iraq’s investigation.

The port on Bubiyan Island has exacerbated tensions which persist since Iraq under former President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Iraq still pays 5 percent of its oil revenue to Kuwait as compensation, and Kuwait continues to demand payments on debt and more reparations.

Baghdad claims the mammoth port, once completed, will strangle its shipping lanes in the narrow Khor Abdullah waterway that serves as its entrance to the Gulf, through which the vast majority of its oil exports flow. Kuwait denies the charge.

Iraq has yet to implement plans to build the Grand Faw port in Basra, which is intended to spur economic activity and become a gateway for Gulf products going to Turkey and Europe.

(Sources: Bloomberg, Al-Iraqiya, Aswat al-Iraq, AFP)

Construction of a port near Iraq’s coast is moving ahead as scheduled despite increasingly vocal opposition from Baghdad, government engineers said this week, according to a report in The National.

Iraqis say the Mubarak al Kabeer port being built by Kuwait on Boubyan [Bubyan] Island will strangle their own shipping industry by blocking access to the sea through the narrow Khawr Abdullah waterway.

The perceived threat to Iraq’s shipping lanes has led members of the Iraqi parliament to campaign against the Kuwaiti project and Iraqi citizens to protest against it in the coastal city of Basra.

Alsumaria TV also reports that Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades and the Sadrist Front have threatened firms contributing to new Kuwaiti port.

Ghalib Safouq, the engineer in charge of the port’s construction, said this week: “They have some doubts. We are explaining it to them.” Mr Safouq said the Kuwaiti government provided an Iraqi delegation with detailed plans of the port, which is in the early stages of construction, to prove it is of no threat to the Iraqi shipping industry.

Kuwait cannot change the timetable aimed at opening the facility with four berths in March 2016, Mr Safouq said.

Hadi Al Amari, Iraq’s transportation minister, said this month that the construction of the port “demonstrates the clear intention of Kuwait to block shipping lanes from Iraqi ports and contradicts UN resolutions …. We say we will not accept that Basra and Iraq be strangled in any way,” the minister said, according to Agence France-Presse.

An Iraqi diplomatic source said the government has not yet commented on the issue officially, but added that an announcement is expected from Baghdad soon.

Kuwait’s parliamentarians have been vocal in demanding that the government follows through with the development. MP Jamaan al Harbash said: “Any backing down from the construction of the Mubarak port is a backing down from Kuwait’s sovereignty.

Kuwait hopes to eventually expand Mubarak al Kabeer to a size that would make it the largest port in the northern Gulf. The main rival to the new facility could be from Iraq itself – the multibillion dollar Grand Faw Port planned for the opposite side of the waterway.

The planners of both facilities hope to eventually link the ports with rail networks that will enable cargo to travel from the east to the ports and then overland to the Levant or Europe, providing shippers an alternative to the Suez Canal.

Teh Arab Times reports that Kuwait is ready to sign an agreement with Iraq to guarantee that the Mubarak Al-Kabeer port project will not hinder the construction of Iraq’s Grand Faw port.

According to the Director of Information at the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aous Al-Tamimi, the Iraqi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ali Al-Sajri held a meeting with the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Iraq Ali Al-Momen to discuss issues of mutual interest, during which they deliberated the construction of Mubarak Al-Kabeer port and its effects, where Al-Momen assured that the project will not affect Iraq’s port project, or its regional waters.

Meanwhile, Al-Momen had indicated readiness to sign an agreement to allay their fears, and went ahead to present some maps and aerial photographs of the location which showed the two projects are 20 kilometers apart. The two countries stand to gain economically, so they agreed to set up a joint technical committee to resolve the issue, whereas a high-powered delegation from Iraq, involving ministers, lawmakers and experts will soon visit Kuwait for further talks on the project.

In the wake of campaign by Iraq against the construction of Mubarak Al-Kabeer port, and statements issued by Iraqi MPs, the Director of Consultative Studies at Kuwait’s Ministry of Public Works, Sorour Al-Otaibi, has stated that almost 48 percent of the work in the first phase of the project has been completed, reports Al-Anba daily.

A few dozen Iraqis protested on Wednesday against Kuwaiti plans for a new port near Umm Qasr, Iraq’s only deep-water port.

AKnews reports that public committees from Basra organized the protests to show public opposition against the Kuwaiti Mubarak port across the border.

“Everyone knows that Kuwait does not need this port since it has a sufficient number of ports”, organizer Abd al-Lazem al-Tai said. He speculated that the current business conflict between the two countries is rooted in the historical disputes over oil wells in Safwan and South Rumaila.

Mr Tai also criticized the Iraqi government for high taxes that would diminish Umm Qasr’s competitive position.

Today’s demonstrations were attended by fewer citizens than expected. Public committees in Basra had announced on Sunday they would assemble more than a thousand citizens in front of Umm Qasr.

Last week, the Kuwaitis laid the foundation stone for the construction of Mubarak port, just over the border from the site of a new Iraqi ‘Grand Faw’ port currently in construction, and close to Umm Qasr.

According to economists, Iraq’s main port will lose 60 per cent of its business if Kuwait goes ahead with its plans.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the formation of an emergency committee to travel to Kuwait immediately to tackle the dispute between the two countries.

(Sources: AKnews, Zawya)

Reuters, quoting Iraq’s Minister for Transport, reports that a tender will be issued by the end of this year for the building of the multibillion-dollar ‘Grand Faw’ port south of Basra.

Talks are ongoing with investors from Australia, France, Germany, Italy and the UAE to help finance the project.

After a presentation of the project’s designs made by Technital, the Italian company that won the design contract, Minister Hadi al-Amiri said: “There are many mechanisms to (fund) the project, maybe through (foreign) investment, or soft loans … from the government.”

According to Iraq’s plan, goods unloaded at the new port would then be loaded onto a new railway system and reach Europe overland more quickly than ships might reach Egypt’s Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

“God willing, the first stage of the project will be finished by the end of 2013,” Amiri said.

The project will be built in two stages and is expected to take about four years to complete. It will include 7,000 metres (23,000 feet) of dock to receive container ships. The dock for general cargo would be 3,500 metres (11,500 feet).

The commercial port will also include two docks for unloading oil products.

Alberto Scotti, president of Technital, put the estimated cost of the project at around 4.5 billion Euros [$6.31 billion, 7.38 trillion Iraqi dinars].

(Source: Reuters)

The head of the Arab Gulf Studies Center in Basra University said on Monday that the center will hold a seminar to discuss the economic feasibility of the planned Faw port to be built in the Ras al-Bayshah area of Basra province.

The center’s director, Jassim Ghali Roumi, told AKnews that the seminar commissioned by Iraq’s parliament to discuss the economic, social and geographical feasibility of the port that will be the country’s biggest, will be held on Tuesday on the Basra University campus.

“The seminar will make recommendations to be submitted to parliament,” Roumi explained.

The new Transport Minister, Hadi al-Amiri, confirmed during his visit to Basra province that the Faw port construction project will be launched this year at an estimated cost of $66bn.

The construction of the Faw port alongside the expansion of the country’s existing 2,000 km of railway is part of a drive to modernize public infrastructure and kick-start Iraq’s economy now that major new oil contracts have been signed.

Goods, once unloaded at the new port, would then be loaded onto the new railway system and reach Europe overland more quickly than ships might reach Egypt’s Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

The port, to be called ‘Grand Faw’, will be constructed in two three-year stages. It will include 7,000 metres of dock ready to receive container ships. The 17 meter-deep dock for general cargo will cover 3,500 metres.

(Source: AKnews)

Southern Iraq’s Grand Faw Port project, recently approved by the Council of Ministers, will provide employment opportunities for 150,000, according to the National Coalition on Sunday.

“The Grand Faw Terminal, approved by the Council of Ministers in 2004, is considered one of the most important projects that can achieve revenues in billions of dollars for Iraq, in addition to providing 120,000 temporary employment opportunities and 30,000 permanent opportunities,” Hussein al-Assadi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

The Grand Faw Terminal project covers an area of 14.7 million square metres, with a depth ranging from 15 to 17 metres, with construction continuing until 2028. The project is being implemented by an Italian consortium, in cooperation with the Projects Implementation Company in the Ministry of Transportation, for an investment cost reaching 4 billion Euros.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)