The Khor Abdullah is a narrow waterway that leads in from the Persian Gulf, curving around Kuwait's Bubiyan and Warba islands on one side and Iraq's Al Faw Peninsula on the other. No more than 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) at its widest point, the Khor Abdullah is the only sea access for Iraq's commercial port of Umm Qasr. Iraq has limited access to the Persian Gulf, with about 58 kilometers of coastline and only two channels deep enough for large vessels to transit: Khor Abdullah (which becomes Khor Zubair further inland) and the Shatt al-Arab. By comparison, Kuwait has nearly 500 kilometers of coastline and nine islands. Iraq and Kuwait share the Khor Abdullah equally, with the border drawn down the middle, but the navigable portion of the channel is closer to the Kuwaiti side. Thus, Kuwait effectively controls one of only two maritime approaches to southern Iraq. Both Iraq and Kuwait have plans to build megaports on the Khor Abdullah. Iraq's $6.1 billion Grand Faw project, proposed in 2005, has been mired in bureaucracy and political instability. However, recent tenders for the construction of breakwaters on the edge of the Al Faw Peninsula and a small allocation in the 2012-2013 budget suggest that the Iraqi government is trying to jump-start the project. Kuwait's project is much further along. In May 2011, Kuwait broke ground on the $1.6 billion Mubarak al-Kabeer port on Bubiyan Island. Due for completion by March 2016, the port would be situated less than 1.6 kilometers across the narrow channel from the site where Iraq wants to build its port. The Khor Abdullah is very small and will be able to handle only a finite amount of traffic. Iraq is concerned that the Kuwaiti port will be operational before its own, effectively siphoning off whatever trade Baghdad hoped to handle at Grand Faw. Iraq does have another channel to the Persian Gulf, the Shatt al-Arab, which is located along its border with Iran and hosts two of Iraq's land-based oil export terminals, but Baghdad claims that all of its ports would be threatened by the development of Kuwait's Mubarak al-Kabeer port.
