The latest Umm Qasr Business News – new Kuwaiti port, Mubarak, Umm Qasr, Iraq – Kuwait / Iraq disputes and more – brought to you by Iraq Business
Umm Qasr port administration has announced the seizure of materials contaminated with radioactive isotopes imported from Japan, according to Aswat al-Iraq. A source told the news agency that an imported fork-lift, heading for the private sector, was discovered to have been contaminated by radiation. No information was given on the volume of radiation in the […]
Azzaman reports that the Ministry of Industry and Minerals has asked South Korean firm Daewoo to rehabilitate its steel industry, which has been idle for more than three decades. Iraq had built one of the Middle East’s largest steel complexes, called the State Company for Iron and Steel, near the port of Umm Qasr, about […]
The Iraqi Electricity Ministry has said that a third Turkish ship will arrive within a few days in the Umm Qasr port (pictured) to supply 108 megawatts of power to Iraq's struggling electricity grid. A spokesman for the ministry has added that two other Turkish floating power plants off southern Iraq supply a total of […]
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 shipping agent in Basra said on Sunday that private sector shipping companies continued to strike for the sixth consecutive day in Khor Al-Zubair and Umm Qasr ports. A spokesman in Basra told AKnews that "our demands are focused on activating Law of 51 that the Iraqi Ministry of Transport refrains from its implementation, though […]
The director of the Iraqi Ports Company said on Thursday that the company signed its second contract with the Emirati company Gulftainer to establish a dry port north of Umm Qasr port, at a cost of $150 million [180 billion Iraqi dinars], according to a report from AKnews. Khudair Aboud said that the project is […]
Basra’s port of Umm Qasr received a shipment of more than 40,000 tons of rice on Sunday. According to the head of public relations at Iraq's ports department, Anmar al-Safi, the shipment was for the Ministry of Trade. “The ship Captain Hady from the Bahamas anchored at a quay in Umm Qasr with 40,045 tons […]
The company dredging Umm Qasr port in Basra province has reached 12 meters deep, which should end Iraq's dependence on neighbouring countries’ ports, according to the Iraqi minister of transport on Friday. “The Belgian company’s excavation works reached a depth of 12 meters on Friday, compared to 7.5 meters in 2005 and 8.5 meters in […]
A Belgian dredger has arrived at Umm Qasr on Wednesday to work on increasing the depth of the shipping channel. The vessel is the 18,620 tonne trailing suction hopper dredger, the 'Francis Beaufort'. It is 142m in length, and has a maximum dredging depth of 71.5m. The report from AKnews says the project was facilitated […]
AFP reports that 90 percent of the $1.9m batch of US-purchased computers destined for schoolchildren but allegedly sold off on the cheap have been recovered. As we reported on Saturday, an unnamed senior official at Umm Qasr port had reportedly misappropriated the gift and auctioned the computers for just $45,700. But customs chief Nofal Salim […]
The U.S. military is demanding to know what happened to $1.9 million worth of computers purchased by American taxpayers, and intended for Iraqi schoolchildren, that have instead been auctioned off by Iraqi officials for less than $50,000. Reports from Associated Press and al Jazeera say the shipment of computers intended for schoolchildren in the central […]
An Iraqi navy has tracked down the thieves who hijacked a number of ships near Iraq’s oil ports in Basra, a news report from Aswat al-Iraq quotes an Iraqi Web site. “We cannot describe these thieves as pirates, they are just thieves,” said an Iraqi source. He described such incidents as one-off events committed by […]
