Iraq is pushing ahead with the Middle East’s largest underwater tunnel, and it could be launched in early 2022, an Iraqi official was quoted on Tuesday as saying. 

South Korea’s Daewoo E&C is building “Alharir” (silk) tunnel in the Southern port of Basra as part of a post-war reconstruction scheme involving rehabilitation and expansion of the OPEC member’s logistics sector, said Inmar Safi, Information Director at the General Company for Ports in Iraq, a subsidiary of the Transport Ministry. 

“Work is underway to complete Alharir tunnel, which is the largest underwater tunnel in the Gulf and the Middle East region…about 75 percent of the project has been completed and we expect it to be ready in early 2022,” Safi told the official Iraqi daily Alsabah. 

He said the 2.5-kilometre-long tunnel would link the new Faw Port, which is being constructed by Daewoo with Umm Qasr and Khor Zubair in South Iraq, adding that it will also be connected to motorways traversing the South to Central and North Iraq and then to Turkey, where cargo would then be shipped to Europe. 

The project was awarded to Daewoo E&C in 2019 with a value of $86 million for Phase 1 but it was delayed for financial reasons. 

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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