OPEC oil producer Iraq is expected to complete the Faw Grant Port, one of the world’s largest container terminals, on schedule by 2023, its Planning Minister was quoted on Monday as saying.
Nouri Al-Dulaimi said a large part of the project in South Iraq was completed in 2019 and that new contracts include more wharfs as well as roads and rail networks linking the port with the Southern Basra oil hub and other cities.
Quoted by Aliqtisad News network, he said the final stages of the project would be funded through annual state budgets and a new oil-for-projects fund agreement signed between Iraq and China in Sept 2019.
“What was achieved in this project last year exceeds work achieved in all the previous years…we now expected the project to be completed after three years and it will be an important pillar of Iraq’s economy,” the Minister said.
Faw Port, with an estimated cost of around $3.3 billion, will have a capacity to handle 99 million tonnes annually. It involves a 39km container quay and two km of berths along with a container warehouse and hinterland covering more than one million square metres.
The project was launched in late 2010 but it was blocked by the country’s cash shortages due to internal hostilities and unstable oil prices.
Source: Reuters (Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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