The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has approved a financing package of up to $120 million for Iraq’s Aloreen Company for Investments Limited to expand the capacity of the dedicated container terminal at Umm Qasr Port in southern Iraq.

The investment will fund the procurement of:

  • Four ship-to-shore cranes
  • Ten rubber-tyred gantry cranes

The upgrades will increase annual container handling capacity at the terminal from 550,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 830,000 TEUs, representing an increase of more than 50 percent.

Umm Qasr Port, located about 70 km south of Basra, is Iraq’s primary maritime gateway and its only deep-water port, handling the majority of container and non-container cargo traffic.

The new financing package will include:

  • A loan of up to $97.74 million from IFC’s own account
  • Mobilisation of a Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Programme (MCPP) loan

The 10-year loan builds on IFC’s earlier financing support in 2021, when it provided $45 million in senior debt and mobilised an additional $80 million from other lenders to help develop the container-dedicated Terminal 2. That project aimed to reduce vessel turnaround times, while Terminal 1 continues to operate as a multipurpose facility.

The latest financing will support further capacity expansion for Terminal 2 to meet higher-than-expected volume growth.     

IFC said the project aligns with Iraq’s Development Road Project, which aims to position the country as a regional transport corridor linking the Gulf to Turkey and onward to Europe.

Aloreen has operated at Umm Qasr since 2016 under a 25-year concession agreement with the General Company for the Ports of Iraq (GCPI) under the commercial name Basra Multipurpose Terminal (BMT).

The total estimated project cost for the development of Terminal 2 is $400 million, according to IFC.

(Writing by Anoop Menon; Editing by SA Kader)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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