Umm Qasr receives Japanese ship carrying 848 vehicles

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Basra’s port of Umm Qasr received for the first time on Sunday a Japanese ship carrying 848 vehicles, according to the Iraqi Ports Company. “The ship, whose hull reaches 10 meters, anchored at the quays of Umm Qasr with 848 cars on board,” the company said in a release received by IraqiNews.com news agency. The Shiite province of Basra, 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has six commercial ports and two oil ports: al-Maaqal, established in 1916 by the British forces and handed over to Iraqi authorities in 1937 and Abdullah port, and Faw, a small port on the al-Faw Peninsula near the Shatt al-Arab waterway and the Gulf. In the early 1970s, Umm Qasr port was built, followed by Khour al-Zubeir and Abu Fallous ports in 1974, established on the Shatt al-Arab. Basra is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. The city played an important role in early Islamic history. The area surrounding Basra has substantial petroleum resources and many oil wells. The city’s oil refinery has a production capacity of about 140,000 barrels per day (bpd). Basra is in a fertile agricultural region, with major products including rice, maize corn, barley, pearl millet, wheat and dates as well as livestock. A network of canals flowed through the city, giving it the nickname “The Venice of the Middle East” at least at high tide. AmR (S) 11