Iraq Sends First Cargo Ship On Gulf Route After More Than 50 Years

Iraq has resumed commercial shipping in the Gulf region after a gap of over 50 years, with Basrah, its cargo ship, departing from Jebel Ali Port in the UAE on October 21.

The vessel is part of a planned route linking Jebel Ali with Umm Qasr, Iraq’s main container port.

The return of the national shipping line of Iraq has come at a time when the Strait of Hormuz crisis has affected the flow of cargo in the region.

Shipping companies have been using alternative ports and land routes to move goods into Iraq, but vessels on the new service must still pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iraq’s Ministry of Transport announced the plan earlier in October. The service aims to increase cargo traffic through Iraqi ports, support regional trade and restore the role of the national carrier in commercial shipping.

The ministry said Iraqi cargo vessels had stopped operating regularly in the Gulf in the mid-1960s. The first departure of the vessel was expected on October 15, but shipping reports and AIS data showed that Basrah departed Jebel Ali on October 21.

According to Alphaliner, Iraqi Maritime Line is deploying the Basrah on an eight-day shuttle between Jebel Ali and Umm Qasr.

The ship was built in 2014 and has been operated by Iraq since then. It has a deadweight tonnage of 17,787 tonnes, measures 143 metres in length and can carry about 900 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). The vessel is registered in Jordan.

AIS signal of the ship indicated that its destination is Kuwait, but Iraq’s transport ministry stated that the service would run from Jebel Ali to Umm Qasr.

This decision was directed by the Transport Minister Wahab Salman Mohammed under plans to restore the country’s national shipping services.

As a result, shipping lines are finding other means of getting containers into Iraq. Increased use of transhipment ports outside the Gulf, followed by overland transport, is also observed.

There has been a significant increase in the amount of cargo coming to the Iraqi ports through the Jordanian port of Aqaba on the Red Sea coast.

The Jordan Shipping Association notes that 37,182 transit containers destined for Iraq were handled by Aqaba in the first seven months of 2026, while in the same period of 2025, the figure was only 3,599. The increase is 933%.

Alternative routes have been created by shipping companies in order to continue cargo delivery. For example, Maersk created new landbridge routes from Aqaba to Iraq. Also, CMA CGM created routes via Aqaba for southern Iraq and via Mersin in Turkey for northern destinations.

Furthermore, CMA CGM created multimodal connections via Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and other ports in Oman and UAE.

In July, Hapag-Lloyd proposed another solution. Containers are unloaded at Khorfakkan, outside the Strait of Hormuz, then transported by road across the UAE to Sharjah or Jebel Ali. From there, they are transferred to third-party feeder vessels serving Iraq and other destinations in the upper Gulf.

Other shipping companies have continued to use smaller feeder vessels for limited maritime connections.

The new service does not bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Ships travelling between Jebel Ali and Umm Qasr must still navigate the waterway.

On October 21, the UK Maritime Trade Operations organisation announced receiving a late notification from the ship’s master regarding the tanker being hit by an unknown projectile 30 nautical miles southeast of Al Faw, Iraq. The Iraqi government did not confirm the information contained in the notification.

The tanker incident was reported at the same time as the resumption of Iraq’s shipping service; however, there was no information linking the two events.