Electricity to reach Basra village

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: A project to supply electricity to a village in northern Basra has been implemented as a total cost of 207 million Iraqi dinars, said an official from the construction department in northern Basra. “Today work completed on a project to install 68 high-pressure electricity columns and 50 low-pressure electricity columns, in addition to two adaptors, in al-Baseeta village, northern Basra,” Ahmed al-Abbas Laftah told IraqiNews.com. The project, which has been conducted by a local company, took four months of work, he added. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008. Basra, a Shiite province with 20% of the population are Sunnis, is the cradle of the first civilization of Sumer. It has the seven main Iraqi ports. The first built in Islam 14 A.H. (After Hegira), 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). The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, 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. The only Iraqi outlet to the sea, Basra has the commercial ports of Iraq. SS (S)/SR 1