Bitumen Supply to Iraq: Sea and Land Approaches, Grades and Documents
Why Iraq is the awkward one: a sea gateway in the wrong corner
Most of the markets on this side of the map are settled cases. Some are reached only by sea. Some are landlocked and reached only overland. Iraq is neither, and that is what makes it worth a page of its own.
Iraq has sea access, but very little of it. The commonly cited figure for the coastline is around 58 km, one of the shortest of any country with a seaboard, and every metre of it is at the head of the Gulf in the far south of Basra governorate. North of that strip the country runs roughly eight hundred kilometres in a straight line, and appreciably more by road, to the Turkish frontier at Zakho. The practical result is that Iraq owns a deep-water port and yet, for a large share of its territory, that port is not the closest way in. A project in Basra or Dhi Qar has a sea gateway on its doorstep. A project in Duhok, Erbil or Sulaymaniyah is a few hours from a land border and the length of the country from Umm Qasr.
So the first question on an Iraqi enquiry is not grade, tonnage or price. It is which approach the project actually sits on, because the answer changes the shape of the whole transaction:
- A sea arrival at Umm Qasr is an ordinary maritime import. Ocean freight, a bill of lading, container arithmetic, port clearance, and the familiar risks of berth waiting, demurrage and detention. The delivery terms that fit are the sea and inland waterway rules — FOB, CFR, CIF — named against a port.
- An overland crossing, at the eastern frontier or from Turkey in the north, is a different animal. No ocean freight, no bill of lading, no container and no demurrage clock. The movement is a road haul to a frontier post and out the other side, on a timescale short enough to change how a buyer orders — though what that timescale actually is on a given corridor is a forwarder’s figure and appears nowhere on this page. The evidence of carriage is a road consignment note. The thing that goes wrong is border procedure, not port congestion. And the delivery terms that fit are the any-mode rules — FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU, DDP — each naming a place, not a port.
A buyer supplying projects in both Basra and Erbil is not running one supply chain with two destinations. They are running two supply chains, and treating them as one is where the paperwork goes wrong.
The demand pattern behind the enquiries
Iraqi binder demand is shaped by reconstruction and by catch-up on deferred maintenance rather than by a smooth national growth curve. Damaged and worn road networks in the north and west, arterial and ring-road work around a rapidly growing Baghdad and Basra, urban resurfacing programmes run by governorates and municipalities, access and hardstanding pavement serving the southern oil and industrial belt, and a separate programme of regional road work in the Kurdistan Region all draw on the same material.
Two consequences follow, and they matter more to a supplier than any figure would. First, the demand is lumpy and project-driven. It arrives when budgets are approved and tenders are awarded, not evenly across the year, so several large requirements can land in the same weeks and compete for the same haulage and the same drums. Second, it is specification-diverse. A federal ministry package, a governorate resurfacing contract, an oil-sector industrial pavement and a Kurdistan Region highway job can each carry a different binder clause, a different ageing test and a different view on modified binder. There is no single Iraqi requirement to quote against, and an offer built on the assumption that there is will be wrong somewhere.
What this page does not tell you
It does not state that any port, crossing, road or rail service is open today, running to a schedule, or accepting this commodity. The geography set out below is public and stable; operating status is not — it changes constantly, and it cannot be verified from a supplier page. It gives no transit times in days, no freight rates, no truck or vessel capacities as fact and no duty rates. It names no haulier, forwarder, terminal, refinery or client, and claims no presence or shipping history in Iraq. It takes no position on any licensing, sanctions or trade-restriction question — a buyer engaged in cross-border trade must obtain their own independent legal and compliance advice, covering both sides of the border, the parties and the payment route, before contracting. And it does not give an Iraqi national standard designation for paving bitumen, for the reason set out in the specification section: the number that binds is the one the tender incorporates, and inventing one to fill a form is worse than leaving the box empty.
The approaches into Iraq, from the sea and across three land frontiers
Iraq is entered from the south by water, from the east and north-east by land, from the north across the Turkish frontier, and from the west and south-west across the desert frontiers with Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Internally, most delivery planning eventually reduces to three trunk axes: the expressway running north-west from the far south through Nasiriyah and past Baghdad toward the Jordanian frontier; the Tigris axis running north from Baghdad through Samarra and Baiji to Mosul and on toward Zakho; and the eastern axis running north-east from Baghdad through Kirkuk and Erbil to Duhok. Kirkuk and Mosul sit on different northern roads, which is why a Nineveh delivery and a Sulaymaniyah delivery are not variations of the same routing. Almost every crossing below feeds one of those three.
| Approach | Entry point | Where it sits | Iraqi hinterland it faces | What a bitumen planner should note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern, by sea | Umm Qasr | On the Khawr Abd Allah waterway close to the Kuwaiti frontier, a short distance south of Basra city; developed over the years in more than one section | Basra, Dhi Qar, Maysan, Muthanna and the southern oil and industrial belt | The only approach on this table that uses maritime rules and produces a bill of lading. Containerised packed cargo is the format most buyers plan around, but what the port will actually handle for this commodity on your date is a forwarder question, not a page assumption. Heated bulk tankage is a contracted commercial arrangement with a terminal operator and must never be inferred from the port name alone. |
| Southern, by sea | Khor al-Zubair | On the Khawr al-Zubair waterway a short distance inland of Umm Qasr | The Basra industrial belt and the southern governorates | Developed as a bulk and industrial cargo port rather than as a container gateway, which is a fact about how it was built and not a statement about what it is doing now. Parcel size, draught and available handling are the questions to put to a forwarder, and none of them can be assumed. |
| Southern, by river | Al Maqal at Basra, and Abu Flous downstream | River berths on the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway formed where the Tigris and Euphrates join at Qurna | Basra city and its immediate hinterland | Closer to the city than Umm Qasr, but these are river berths with draught limits that constrain parcel size. They are a convenience for a small consignment, not a deep-water alternative for a large one. |
| Southern, by sea | Al-Faw | On the Faw peninsula at the head of the Gulf, south-east of Basra | Intended to serve the south, and named in various corridor proposals for onward traffic | A deep-water port project that has been under development over a long period. This page states nothing about its status or capability. Treat it as a question for your freight forwarder rather than as a routing assumption. |
| Eastern, by land | Shalamcheh | On the frontier east of Basra, close to the Shatt al-Arab | Basra and the far south | The shortest land approach to the southern governorates, and therefore the crossing that competes head-on with a sea arrival at Umm Qasr for the same cargo. A rail alignment between Shalamcheh and Basra has been the subject of long-running proposals; this page does not state whether any of it is built or carrying traffic. |
| Eastern, by land | Chazabeh | On the frontier facing Maysan governorate | Amarah and Maysan | A secondary crossing, useful mainly when a project sits in the Amarah area rather than at Basra or on the Baghdad axis. Do not route to it out of habit; check what the forwarder can actually execute. |
| Eastern, by land | Mehran, facing Zurbatiyah | On the eastern frontier at Wasit governorate, east of Baghdad | Wasit and Kut, onward to Baghdad, and the Karbala and Najaf axis | Geographically the most direct land approach from the eastern frontier to the central Iraqi plain and the capital. It also sits on the route of a very large seasonal pilgrimage movement toward the shrine cities, which has long been a scheduling consideration for anyone planning freight through this part of the frontier rather than a routing one. Ask the forwarder what that means for your window in the season you intend to move. |
| Eastern, by land | Khosravi, facing Munthiriya | On the eastern frontier at Diyala governorate, north of the Mehran axis | Diyala, Baqubah and a second approach to Baghdad | The historic road into the central shrine cities from the east, and a second line of approach to Baghdad that does not run through Wasit. Like Mehran it lies on an axis long associated with heavy seasonal passenger movement, and a freight schedule drawn without asking about that is a schedule with an avoidable delay built into it. |
| North-eastern, by land | Parviz Khan | The Iraqi side lies in the Garmian area near Kalar, administered within the Kurdistan Region | Southern Sulaymaniyah governorate, Garmian and the Kirkuk approach | Long established as a commercial freight crossing on this frontier, and geographically the lowest-lying of the crossings that serve the Kurdistan Region — it approaches through the Garmian lowlands rather than over the Zagros, which matters in winter in a way the mountain routes do not. Whether it is currently open to this commodity is a forwarder question. |
| North-eastern, by land | Bashmaq, facing Penjwen | On the mountain frontier east of Sulaymaniyah city, with Penjwen on the Iraqi side | Sulaymaniyah city and its hinterland | The direct approach to Sulaymaniyah. It is a mountain road, and mountain roads have winter behaviour that a delivery schedule has to allow for rather than discover. |
| North-eastern, by land | Tamarchin, facing Haji Omaran | On the north-eastern frontier, with Haji Omaran in Erbil governorate on the Iraqi side | Erbil and the northern Kurdistan Region | The approach to Erbil through the Zagros. High ground, genuine snow and seasonal difficulty. Of all the eastern crossings this is the one where the altitude of the route, not the distance, sets the risk. |
| Northern, from Turkey | Ibrahim Khalil at Zakho, facing Habur near Silopi | Duhok governorate on the Iraqi side, at the Turkish frontier | Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, and down the northern trunk road to Mosul and the Nineveh plain | The northern gateway that Iraq’s geography points to for any cargo originating in or transiting Turkey: Zakho sits at the frontier and Duhok, Erbil and Mosul are all within the northern road network beyond it. For a project anywhere in the Kurdistan Region this is the alternative that a routing from Umm Qasr has to be measured against, and on distance alone the comparison is rarely close. Status, transit regime and whether the crossing will take this commodity are matters for a forwarder. |
| Western and south-western, by land | Trebil facing Karameh in Jordan; al-Qaim and Rabia on the Syrian frontier; Arar facing Saudi Arabia; Safwan facing Abdali in Kuwait | The desert frontiers of Anbar, Nineveh, Muthanna and Basra | Anbar and the western desert route to Baghdad; Nineveh from the north-west; Basra from Kuwait | Listed for completeness of the map, because a buyer sourcing from another direction will meet them. They are long desert approaches with their own transit regimes, and none of them is described here as available or in use. |
How the project’s location decides the term you can quote and the packing you can use
The choice between the sea approach and a land crossing is not a preference and it is not a freight-rate comparison in the abstract. It is set by where in the country the material has to end up, and once it is set, the delivery term and the packing follow from it almost automatically.
The rough dividing line
There is no exact latitude at which the answer flips, and any forwarder will tell you the line moves with the specific project, the season and the tender’s own delivery requirement. But the broad logic is stable:
- The far south — Basra, Dhi Qar, Maysan, Muthanna and the southern industrial belt — is the one region where the sea approach through Umm Qasr and the land approach through Shalamcheh are genuinely competing options for the same cargo. This is where the comparison has to be done properly rather than assumed.
- The centre — Baghdad, Wasit, Diyala, Babil, Karbala, Najaf — is reached from the eastern frontier at Mehran or Khosravi with a short inland leg, or from Umm Qasr with a long one up the length of the country. Distance is not the only factor, but it is a large one for a cargo of this weight and value density.
- The north and the Kurdistan Region — Duhok, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and the Nineveh and Kirkuk plains — are overland territory. Ibrahim Khalil from Turkey, or Parviz Khan, Bashmaq and Tamarchin on the north-eastern frontier, put material within a short drive of the site. A routing from Umm Qasr means hauling the full length of Iraq by road.
Why bitumen is unusually sensitive to this
Bitumen is heavy and low in value density: a tonne of binder is worth a small fraction of a tonne of most cargo that moves in a container, and weighs the same. Freight is therefore a large share of landed cost rather than a rounding error, and an extra several hundred kilometres of inland road haulage is not a detail — it can be the difference between a competitive offer and an uncompetitive one. This is precisely why the routing question comes before the price question on an Iraqi enquiry, and why an offer that has not established the destination governorate is an offer built on a guess.
The delivery term follows the mode, not the habit
Under Incoterms 2020, FOB, FAS, CFR and CIF are sea and inland waterway rules. They are built around a vessel and a port and they have coherent meaning for a cargo discharging at Umm Qasr. They have no coherent meaning for a truck arriving at Erbil. The rules that work for any mode of transport are FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU and DDP, and each of them names a place.
Two errors recur on Iraqi business and both are expensive:
- Quoting FOB or CFR against an inland Iraqi delivery. The buyer reads it as a price to their site; the seller means something else entirely; and where risk and cost actually pass is genuinely ambiguous until something goes wrong and the two readings collide.
- Naming a country instead of a place. DAP Iraq is not a delivery term. DAP followed by a named border crossing, a named city or a named project site is. On an overland movement the named place also has to settle who is arranging border formalities and who carries the cost if a vehicle stands and waits, because on a land leg the truck and driver are idle at somebody’s expense — unlike a berth delay, which is a liner’s scheduling problem before it is yours.
Packing economics invert when the sea leg disappears
Every buyer who has imported by sea sizes an order in containers. Those figures are real and they still apply to an Umm Qasr arrival: new steel drums of 150 kg give 80 drums and 12 MT per 20′ FCL; 180 kg drums give 80 drums and 14.4 MT; 185 kg drums give 80 drums and 14.8 MT; and jumbo or poly bags of 1 MT give 20 bags and 20 MT. Use them to work out drum counts, packing cost per tonne and the number of boxes on a bill of lading.
Overland, the container is not the unit — the truck load is. What a vehicle may lawfully carry into Iraq is fixed by the axle-load and gross-weight regime of the country the load originates in, of any country it transits, and of Iraq itself, and then by the weakest bridge on the chosen axis. On an Iraqi routing that is three regimes rather than one, because a load crossing at Ibrahim Khalil has moved under Turkish rules all the way to the frontier, and a load entering at Zurbatiyah has moved under the axle-load regime in force on the far side of that crossing. No figure for it appears on this page: it belongs to the forwarder who will actually run the corridor. The correct sequence is to use the container figures to fix your packing and your drum count, then ask the forwarder how that tonnage converts into vehicles on your specific axis, and to price the handovers as well as the kilometres.
Where bulk in a heated road tanker actually works
On a long sea leg, bulk binder is a specialist operation requiring dedicated tonnage and heated tankage at both ends. Over a short land leg it is genuinely practical, and this is one of the real advantages of an overland approach. A heated road tanker crossing the eastern frontier into the southern or central Iraqi plain and discharging into an asphalt plant’s tank removes packaging cost, drum handling and drum disposal at a stroke.
The condition is at the receiving end, and it is not a formality. The buyer needs heated storage, a discharge pump and line, and the ability to take the whole load promptly. A tanker that waits at a frontier and cools is an operational problem, not a delay. The practical rule for Iraq is that bulk deserves serious consideration where the land leg is short and the receiving plant is properly equipped — a Basra or central-plain plant fed through an eastern crossing is the clearest case — and that drums remain the sound default where the leg is long, where the route crosses high ground in winter, or where the receiving site’s equipment is anything less than certain. A drum needs no heated storage, can be handled without a terminal crane, can sit on site through a shutdown, can be heated one unit at a time, and fails locally: a damaged drum costs one drum, whereas a compromised bulk load costs the consignment.
The heat in the south, the winter in the north, and one country between them
Iraqi summer in the centre and south is at the severe end of anything this site supplies into. Air temperatures above 45 °C are routine through the long summer, and readings above 50 °C are recorded in the far south in most years, with the Basra area among the hottest inhabited places anywhere. Pavement surface temperature under direct solar exposure runs substantially above air temperature, and it is pavement temperature, not air temperature, that the binder actually experiences. That is the whole engineering argument for a harder grade, and it is worth being explicit about why: penetration is measured at 25 °C, a temperature an Iraqi summer pavement does not see for months at a time, so the grade name describes the binder in a condition that has almost nothing to do with the condition in which it fails. The failure being designed against here is rutting under a hot, heavily loaded pavement. But Iraq is not one climate. The rain falls in winter rather than summer, the north is genuinely wet, and the mountains along the eastern and northern frontiers carry snow and sustained sub-zero spells. A specification written for Basra and applied in Sulaymaniyah is a specification applied in the wrong country.
| Zone | Summer character | Winter character | What it means for binder and season |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basra, the Shatt al-Arab and the far south, near sea level | The most severe in the country: very long, with sustained extreme daytime heat and, near the waterway, high humidity on top of it | Mild. Frost is rare and the rain is limited | The clearest case in Iraq for a hard binder. Rutting under sustained high pavement temperature dominates and the low-temperature end is not the constraint. Laying continues through most of the year; the difficulty at the height of summer is crew welfare and compaction control, not weather stoppage. |
| Baghdad and the central alluvial plain | Very hot, very dry and long | Cool, with the rain falling roughly between November and April; occasional frost at night | Harder binder again, whether that is 40/50 or 60/70 held to the harder end of its band. What stops work here is winter rain rather than winter cold, so the season is bounded by the wet months and not by temperature. |
| The western desert, Anbar and the Jordanian approach | Extreme heat with very low humidity and a wide day-to-night swing; persistent wind carrying dust | Cool days, cold nights, occasional frost | Heat plus dust. The wider diurnal swing means the binder works harder through each cycle than the daytime maximum alone suggests. Dust is a mix-quality problem at the plant, and drums stored uncovered in this environment deteriorate faster than a buyer expects. |
| Northern plain: Nineveh, Mosul and Kirkuk | Hot and dry, but short of the southern extreme | Cool and genuinely wet — the wettest of the lowland zones, with frost | A two-ended requirement rather than a one-sided one. The season is bounded at both ends by winter rain, which makes pre-positioning material before the spring window a normal precaution rather than a contingency. |
| Kurdistan Region foothills: Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok | Hot, but consistently milder than the centre and south | Cold and wet, with snow at higher ground and freeze-thaw cycling | The one part of Iraq where the low-temperature end of the specification is a live engineering question. A binder chosen only to survive a Basra July is the wrong binder here, and a hard grade specified nationally without a cold check is a pavement that cracks in its first northern winter. |
| The Zagros frontier and the high passes | Mild by Iraqi standards | Heavy snow and sustained sub-zero conditions; the approaches to Haji Omaran and Penjwen are high ground | Here the constraint is access as much as material. A winter delivery routed over a mountain crossing carries a genuine schedule risk, and the answer is usually to move material before the season closes rather than to argue about it afterwards. |
How Iraqi road works specify their binder, and why no standard number appears here
Iraqi road works are commonly specified against penetration grades, in the ASTM and AASHTO idiom, with the harder grades favoured because of the summer heat. That is a description of practice, not a citation, and the distinction matters.
The idiom is penetration grading
Where an Iraqi road project carries a written technical specification, the bituminous section is normally drawn from American practice: paving grades named as penetration bands, test methods cited as ASTM or AASHTO designations, and mix design and construction requirements built on the same family of documents. An offer written as 40/50 or 60/70 is therefore immediately readable, and there is none of the translation problem that a viscosity-graded market like India creates.
One notational point saves correspondence. AASHTO M20 writes penetration grades with a hyphen — 40-50, 60-70, 85-100 — while the export trade writes 40/50 and 60/70 with a slash. They are the same bands, measured by the same needle test at 25 °C. A clause naming grade 40-50 is not naming something different from what an exporter calls 40/50.
Why this page gives you no Iraqi standard designation
Iraq has a national standards body, the Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control, and federal road procurement runs through the ministry responsible for construction and housing, with separate procurement in the Kurdistan Region and further work let by governorates, municipalities and oil-sector clients. Project documents typically incorporate a general specification for roads and bridges whose bituminous section derives from ASTM and AASHTO practice.
What this page will not do is print a national standard designation for paving bitumen and invite you to quote against it. Specification practice across those several procuring bodies is not uniform enough to be summarised in one number, and a number quoted from memory into a compliance box on an offer form is a false compliance claim sitting inside a contract. If an enquiry form asks which Iraqi standard the cargo complies with, the honest and correct answer is that the binding requirement is the one the tender document incorporates, and that you will quote against that clause once you have seen it. Ask for the clause. It is a normal request and a serious buyer will send it.
The five questions to ask about a tender’s binder clause
- Which document, and which edition? Specifications assembled from older templates carry grades and limits that differ from current published standards. Take the acceptance limits from the text the tender incorporates, not from a refinery data sheet and not from memory.
- Penetration, viscosity or performance grade? Penetration is the common case in Iraq. A clause drafted from a viscosity-graded American template may name AC-type designations under AASHTO M226; one drafted from Superpave practice will name a performance grade under AASHTO M320 or, where the mix is heavily loaded, an MSCR-based grade under AASHTO M332. These are three different measuring systems and a grade in one cannot be inferred from a grade in another.
- Which ageing procedure is controlled? The thin-film oven test (ASTM D1754) and the rolling thin-film oven test (ASTM D2872, AASHTO T240) are different exposures and their results are not interchangeable. Middle East export certificates carry TFOT by default. If the clause controls RTFOT, add that test to the schedule before the batch is certified, not after the cargo has crossed a frontier.
- Where in the band, and what softening point? This is the Iraq-specific question and it is covered in detail below. A grade name is a band, and in this climate the position within the band is a real performance variable.
- Is a modified binder required, and are prime and tack coat products in the same package? Heavily loaded wearing courses frequently call for polymer modified binder. Cutbacks under ASTM D2027 and emulsions under ASTM D977 or ASTM D2397 are separate products with their own acceptance tables, and a paving-grade certificate evidences nothing for them.
The band is not a point: ask where in it the batch sits
Two cargoes can both be genuine 60/70 and behave differently on an Iraqi pavement. One measures 61 dmm with a softening point near 56 °C; the other measures 69 dmm with a softening point near 49 °C. Both are in grade. Both will pass a conformity check against the band. In a Baghdad or Basra summer they are not the same material, and the softer one is carrying materially less rut resistance into a design case that is already at the limit of what an unmodified binder can do.
The practical responses, in order of usefulness:
- Require the measured value, not the band, on the Certificate of Analysis. A COA that reprints the specification range every time tells you nothing about the batch you are buying.
- Agree a narrower contractual window in writing. If your project needs the harder half of 60/70, say so in the contract as a specific penetration and softening point range for this shipment. The grade name does not change and the tender is still satisfied; what changes is that you now have a contractual right to the material you actually need.
- Look at softening point as well as penetration. Ring and ball to ASTM D36 is the line that speaks most directly to behaviour at service temperature, and it is the line most often skimmed over on an export offer.
- Consider stepping to 40/50 rather than arguing about the top of 60/70, where the tender permits it. A hard grade properly specified is a cleaner answer than a soft grade tightly policed.
If a performance grade is named
A performance grade cannot be derived from a penetration certificate. It requires dynamic shear rheometer testing on unaged and RTFOT-aged binder (AASHTO T315), pressure ageing vessel conditioning (AASHTO R28), bending beam rheometer testing of the aged residue for the low-temperature grade (AASHTO T313) and rotational viscosity (AASHTO T316); where the clause is written against MSCR, add the multiple stress creep recovery test (AASHTO T350). Note the Iraqi shape of the problem: in the centre and south the high-temperature designation derived from site air temperature statistics is demanding, and grades at that level commonly require polymer modification rather than a harder straight-run binder. In the Kurdistan Region the low-temperature designation becomes the binding half. Establish at enquiry stage whether the test data exists, because it is the half of a PG grade an exporter is least likely to hold.
What a usable Certificate of Analysis looks like here
- Batch or lot identification tying the certificate to the drums or the tanker actually loaded — not a typical-values sheet reissued for every consignment.
- Penetration at 25 °C and softening point as measured values, each with the ASTM designation printed beside the result, and each read against any narrower contractual window you agreed.
- Ductility, flash point, solubility, specific gravity and water content.
- The ageing result in the form the tender asks for, labelled with the procedure actually run.
- Where the site sees cold nights, an agreed low-temperature line — Fraass breaking point to EN 12593, or bending beam rheometer stiffness and m-value under AASHTO M320 — because a standard export sheet does not carry one.
- Where a modified binder is supplied, elastic recovery, storage stability and the modification type, not merely the word polymer.
Typical export specification for the two grades an Iraqi tender usually names
Iraqi projects buy in the penetration idiom, and in practice the argument sits between 60/70 and the harder 40/50. The two columns below set the harder grade beside the common one so the difference an Iraqi summer actually feels — the softening point line — can be read across. The figures are the typical export ranges published on regional refinery data sheets, each with the test method that produces it. Read them alongside the note, which sets out the two lines that matter most for an Iraqi buyer and the one line that is missing from every standard export sheet.
| Property | Test method | Unit | Bitumen 40/50 | Bitumen 60/70 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penetration at 25 °C, 100 g, 5 s | ASTM D5 / EN 1426 | dmm (0.1 mm) | 40–50 | 60–70 |
| Softening point, ring and ball | ASTM D36 / EN 1427 | °C | 52–60 | 49–56 |
| Ductility at 25 °C, 5 cm/min | ASTM D113 | cm | 100 min | 100 min |
| Flash point, Cleveland open cup | ASTM D92 / EN ISO 2592 | °C | 250 min | 250 min |
| Solubility in trichloroethylene | ASTM D2042 / EN 12592 | wt % | 99.0 min | 99.0 min |
| Specific gravity at 25 °C | ASTM D70 / EN 15326 | — | 1.01–1.06 | 1.01–1.06 |
| Loss on heating, 163 °C for 5 h | ASTM D1754 (TFOT) | wt % | 0.2 max | 0.2 max |
| Drop in penetration after heating | ASTM D5 on TFOT residue | % of original | 20 max | 20 max |
| Spot test | AASHTO T 102 (method withdrawn; carried commercially) | — | Negative | Negative |
| Water content | ASTM D95 | vol % | 0.2 max | 0.2 max |
| Breaking point, Fraass — northern sites only | EN 12593 | °C | By written agreement | By written agreement |
Choosing the binder for an Iraqi site
Grade choice here is driven by two variables that pull in opposite directions: extreme summer pavement temperature in the centre and south, and genuine winter cold in the north. Decide which one governs the site before you decide the grade.
Bitumen 40/50
The harder answer for the centre and the south, where sustained high pavement temperature makes rutting the governing failure mode. Softening point typically 52 to 60 °C against 49 to 56 °C for a 60/70 from the same source, which is the difference that shows up in an Iraqi July. Supply it where a tender names it, and raise it as a question where a tender names 60/70 for a hot southern site without explaining why.
Bitumen 60/70, and where in the band
Still the most commonly named grade, and perfectly serviceable across much of Iraq — but a 60/70 at 69 dmm and a 60/70 at 61 dmm are not the same material on a Baghdad wearing course. Require measured penetration and softening point on the batch COA, and where the design case is tight, agree a narrower contractual window in writing rather than accepting the full band.
Bitumen 30/40 and harder
Occasionally named for the most heavily loaded and hottest applications. Treat a harder grade as a decision to be justified by the tender, not as a general improvement: every step down in penetration trades rut resistance for a greater risk of thermal and fatigue cracking, and that trade is a poor one anywhere the site sees cold nights.
Softer grades in the north
85/100 and softer belong to the cracking-dominated end of the problem, not the rutting-dominated one, and in Iraq that means the Kurdistan Region and the high ground rather than the plain. Do not supply a softer grade into a southern project on the reasoning that it is easier to work, and do not supply a hard grade into a mountain project on the reasoning that harder is stronger.
Polymer modified binder
The realistic answer where the pavement is both hot and heavily loaded: intersections and junctions, bus and truck standing areas, port and industrial hardstanding, oilfield access roads and steep grades. Where a performance grade at the high-temperature end of the range is specified, modification is commonly what delivers it rather than a harder straight-run binder. Establish what the tender actually requires before you price an unmodified grade against it. And note the routing consequence: a modified binder in bulk wants controlled heating and agitation to stay homogeneous, which is a poor fit for a heated tanker standing at a frontier post for an indeterminate period, so on an overland Iraqi leg modified product is usually the stronger argument for drums rather than tankers.
Cutback and emulsion
A reconstruction programme that rebuilds roads from the formation up puts a great deal of granular base on the ground, and every square metre of it wants a prime coat before the bituminous layers go on, so these products turn up on Iraqi packages more often than on a pure resurfacing market. Medium-curing cutbacks under ASTM D2027, MC-30 and MC-70, are the usual prime; emulsions under ASTM D2397 and ASTM D977 cover tack coats and cold works. Iraq puts an unusual squeeze on both. A cutback carries solvent, and its flash point and handling regime are nothing like a paving grade’s — which matters more, not less, when drums sit in a southern summer. An emulsion has a finite storage life and dislikes both ends of the thermometer, so a Basra July and a Sulaymaniyah January are each capable of ruining it, and an inland leg with a border wait in the middle exposes it to whichever one is in season.
The document set for a land crossing against the document set for a sea arrival
This is the part of an Iraqi transaction that most often goes wrong, because a buyer or a bank reuses a template built for the other mode. The two sets share a core — invoice, packing list, certificate of origin, safety data sheet, certificate of analysis — but almost everything around that core changes. Read this table before a letter of credit is drafted, not after it is issued.
| Item | Sea arrival at Umm Qasr | Overland crossing at a land frontier | Why the difference matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transport document | Bill of lading: a negotiable document of title that can be endorsed and against which a bank can hold security | Road consignment note, or a rail waybill where rail is used: a receipt and evidence of the contract of carriage, but not a document of title | This is the single biggest structural difference. A letter of credit calling for a marine bill of lading cannot be satisfied by a truck consignment note, and an overland deal financed on a documentary structure designed around title in a shipping document has to be rebuilt. Settle the transport document with the bank before the credit is opened. |
| Incoterms 2020 rule | FOB, CFR or CIF, named port of shipment or destination | FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU or DDP, named place | Sea rules are built around a vessel and have no coherent meaning for a truck. Using one for an inland Iraqi delivery leaves genuinely unresolved where cost and risk pass, and the two parties usually discover their different readings at the worst possible moment. |
| Naming the destination | A port name is sufficient and unambiguous | A country name is not a place. The rule must name a border crossing, a city or a project site | DAP Iraq is not a delivery term. On an overland movement the named place also has to settle who arranges border formalities on each side and who bears the cost of a vehicle standing and waiting. |
| Customs entry point | Port customs at the discharge port, cleared by a licensed customs broker | The customs post at the land frontier. Iraq’s federal and Kurdistan Region administrations have not always handled entry at the northern and north-eastern crossings on the same basis, and the arrangement has changed more than once. This page does not state what applies now. Which authority clears your entry, and whether a further formality attaches to onward movement into the rest of Iraq, are questions to put to a licensed broker rather than assumptions to carry into a contract | Getting this wrong does not delay a consignment; it strands it. Establish the clearing arrangement and the responsible party for each leg before the goods move, and get the answer in writing from someone accountable for it. |
| Conformity and pre-shipment requirements | Whatever conformity, inspection or certification regime applies on the shipment date, evidenced at the port of entry | The same question, asked at the frontier post instead | Iraq has a national standards body, the Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control, and conformity-assessment and pre-shipment arrangements for imported goods exist in various forms whose scope and administration change. This page does not state what applies to your product on your date. Confirm it with a licensed customs broker before contracting, and confirm it again if the shipment slips. |
| The thing that goes wrong | Berth waiting, container demurrage and detention, storage charges at the port | Vehicle queueing at the frontier, transit documentation, vehicle and driver admission, and standing time | The failure mode moves, and so does who pays for it. A berth delay is a carrier’s scheduling problem before it is yours; a truck waiting at a border is your truck, your driver and your cargo. Allocate that risk explicitly in the contract. |
| Unit of packing | The 20′ container. Site-wide loading figures apply: 150 kg drums give 80 drums and 12 MT; 180 kg give 80 drums and 14.4 MT; 185 kg give 80 drums and 14.8 MT; 1 MT jumbo or poly bags give 20 bags and 20 MT | The truck load, set by axle-load and gross-weight limits along the route. Drums on a flatbed, or bulk in a heated road tanker where the receiver can discharge it | Container arithmetic does not transfer to a road vehicle. Use the container figures to fix packing and drum count, then ask the forwarder how that tonnage converts into vehicles on the specific corridor before you convert a tonnage into a delivery schedule. |
| Cargo insurance | Marine cargo policy on institute cargo clauses, familiar to every bank and trader in the chain | Inland transit or road cargo cover. Carrier liability under a road carriage convention is limited and calculated by weight; it is not cargo insurance and it will not make a buyer whole on a full load | This is the most commonly missed line on an overland deal. Buyers assume the consignment note carries protection equivalent to a marine policy. It does not. Arrange transit cover deliberately and check that it runs door to door across the frontier rather than stopping at it. |
| Inspection and sampling | Third-party inspection at the load port, sampling across the consignment to ASTM D140, sealed retained samples held by both parties | Third-party inspection at the loading point before departure, with the same sampling discipline, plus a recorded drum count, drum condition and seal numbers at each handover | An overland cargo passes through more hands than a sealed container on a ship, and each handover is a place for a quantity or condition argument to start. Recording seals and counts at the loading point is what closes those arguments before they open. |
| Lead time character | Set by a sailing schedule and a berth window, and counted in weeks | Set by a road movement and a frontier post, and counted in a different order of magnitude entirely — no transit figure for any Iraqi crossing is stated on this page, because it is not knowable from here | The commercial consequence is not speed for its own sake. A short lead time lets a buyer order closer to need, in smaller lots, more often, instead of committing to a large parcel months ahead of a season — which is a real advantage when demand arrives in project-driven bursts. |
Settling an Iraqi consignment in the right order
Because Iraq offers two genuinely different routes, the order in which decisions are taken matters more here than in a single-approach market. Take them in this sequence and no decision invalidates the one before it.
Take your own legal and compliance advice first
Any cross-border trade requires the buyer to obtain independent legal, regulatory and compliance advice covering both sides of the frontier, the goods, the parties and the payment route, from advisers accountable for that opinion. This page takes no position on licensing, restriction or sanctions questions for any country and is not a substitute for that advice. Settle it before you spend time on routing and grade, because it determines whether there is a transaction to plan at all.
Establish the destination governorate, not just the country
Write down the actual delivery point: the city, the plant or the project site. Everything downstream depends on it — whether a sea arrival at Umm Qasr or a land crossing is even in contention, which crossing, which delivery term, which packing, and how much of the landed cost is inland haulage. An enquiry that says Iraq and a tonnage cannot be priced properly, only guessed at.
Compare the two approaches honestly for that point
For a southern project, compare a sea arrival against the Shalamcheh land approach on landed cost, lead time and the documentary structure your bank can actually support. For a northern project, compare Ibrahim Khalil and the north-eastern crossings against each other rather than against a routing up the length of the country. Ask the forwarder to quote both, and compare the transfer count as well as the kilometres.
Name the delivery place and choose the matching Incoterms rule
If the answer is a sea arrival, the sea rules apply and a port name is enough. If the answer is overland, choose from FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU or DDP and name a crossing, a city or a site. Then settle in the same clause who arranges border formalities on each side and who bears the cost of a vehicle standing and waiting, because that allocation is where overland contracts most often fall silent.
Confirm route and current status with a freight forwarder, in writing
The geography on this page is public and stable. Operating status is neither. Ask a forwarder which ports and crossings they can actually execute for this commodity now, what transit regime and documentation apply, what the legal payload is on that route, and what a realistic border allowance looks like. Get the answer dated, and re-confirm it if the shipment slips.
Read the tender’s binder clause, then settle where in the band
Identify which document the clause comes from and which edition, whether it is written by penetration, viscosity or performance grade, and which ageing procedure it controls. Then take the Iraq-specific step: decide whether the full grade band is acceptable for this site or whether you need a narrower contractual window on penetration and softening point, and put that window in the contract. For a northern site, add the low-temperature line the export sheet does not carry.
Settle the conformity question with a licensed customs broker
Ask, in writing, whether any conformity assessment, certificate of conformity or pre-shipment inspection requirement applies to this product on your shipment date, what evidence customs will expect at the specific entry point you are using, and whether the answer differs between a sea arrival and the land crossing you have chosen. Do not rely on a remembered position from a previous shipment or an undated article.
Write the test schedule into the contract and inspect at loading
Name every property and its ASTM, AASHTO or EN method in the contract, require a batch-specific Certificate of Analysis with measured values rather than a typical-values sheet, and appoint an internationally recognised inspection company to attend loading, sample across the consignment to ASTM D140, seal retained samples held by both parties, and record drum count, drum condition and seal numbers. Do this whichever way the cargo comes, but understand why it bites harder on the land legs: a rejected parcel at Umm Qasr is a cargo sitting in a port with a shipping document behind it, whereas a rejected parcel that has already cleared a frontier post and been hauled to Erbil is a problem with no realistic reverse gear. The inspection you did not pay for at the loading point is the argument you cannot win afterwards.
Plan against the season and against the demand burst
Decide which climate zone the project sits in and when its window actually opens. In the north and centre that means working around winter rain and getting material in position before the spring; on the mountain routes it means moving before the passes become a schedule risk. Then allow for the fact that awarded reconstruction packages tend to start in the same weeks, which puts binder, drums and haulage under pressure exactly when you need them.
Frequently asked questions about bitumen supply to Iraq
Does bitumen reach Iraq by sea or overland?
Both, and that is what makes Iraq unusual in this group. Iraq has a coastline commonly given as roughly 58 km, all of it at the extreme southern tip of the country, with the principal deep-water gateway at Umm Qasr on the Khawr Abd Allah waterway near Basra. North of that strip the country runs roughly eight hundred kilometres in a straight line, and appreciably more by road, to the Turkish frontier, so for a large share of Iraqi territory the nearest way in is a land border rather than the country’s own port: the eastern and north-eastern crossings at Shalamcheh, Chazabeh, Mehran, Khosravi, Parviz Khan, Bashmaq and Tamarchin, and the northern crossing from Turkey at Ibrahim Khalil facing Habur. Which approach is right is decided by where the project sits, not by preference. Whether any specific port or crossing is open and handling this commodity on your shipment date is an operating question for your freight forwarder, not something a supplier page can state.
Which grade does Iraq use, and what is the Iraqi national standard number?
Iraqi road works are commonly specified against penetration grades in the ASTM and AASHTO idiom, with the harder grades favoured because of the summer heat — 40/50, and 60/70 held toward the harder end of its band, with polymer modified binder on heavily loaded pavement. This page deliberately gives no Iraqi national standard designation. Iraq has a national standards body, the Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control, and road procurement runs through the federal construction ministry, the Kurdistan Region authorities, governorates, municipalities and oil-sector clients, whose project documents are not uniform. The requirement that binds your shipment is the one the tender incorporates, so ask for the binder clause and quote against it. If an offer form asks you to name an Iraqi standard number, say that the tender governs rather than filling the box with a designation you cannot substantiate.
Why does Iraq favour harder grades such as 40/50?
Because of the summer. Air temperatures in the centre and south exceed 45 °C routinely through a long summer and readings above 50 °C are recorded in the far south in most years, with the Basra area among the hottest inhabited places anywhere. Pavement surface temperature under direct sun runs substantially above air temperature, and it is pavement temperature that the binder actually experiences. The failure being designed against is therefore rutting under a hot, heavily loaded pavement, and a harder binder resists it better: 40/50 typically carries a softening point of 52 to 60 °C against 49 to 56 °C for a 60/70 from the same source. Note the underlying oddity that drives the whole discussion — penetration is measured at 25 °C, a temperature an Iraqi summer pavement does not see for months, so the grade name describes the binder in a condition almost unrelated to the one in which it fails.
Our tender says 60/70. How do we stop a soft batch arriving?
Recognise that a grade name is a band, not a point, and that in this climate the position within the band is a real performance variable. A 60/70 at 69 dmm with a softening point near 49 °C and a 60/70 at 61 dmm with a softening point near 56 °C are both in grade, both will pass a conformity check, and they are not the same material on a Baghdad wearing course. Do three things. Require measured penetration and softening point on a batch-specific Certificate of Analysis rather than a sheet that reprints the specification range. Agree a narrower penetration and softening point window for this shipment in writing in the contract — the grade name does not change and the tender is still satisfied, but you gain a contractual right to the material you need. And appoint third-party inspection at the loading point with sampling across the consignment to ASTM D140 and sealed retained samples. Where the tender allows it, stepping to 40/50 is often a cleaner answer than policing the top of 60/70.
Which crossing should we use for a project in the Kurdistan Region?
The Kurdistan Region is overland territory, and a routing from Umm Qasr means hauling the full length of Iraq by road, which is rarely competitive for a cargo as heavy and low in value density as binder. The geography runs like this: Ibrahim Khalil at Zakho, facing Habur near Silopi on the Turkish side, is the northern gateway the geography points to, with Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah beyond it and the Tigris road running down to Mosul; on the north-eastern frontier, Tamarchin facing Haji Omaran is the approach to Erbil through the Zagros, Bashmaq facing Penjwen is the approach to Sulaymaniyah, and Parviz Khan reaches the Garmian area near Kalar and the southern part of Sulaymaniyah governorate at lower elevation, which matters in winter when the mountain routes do not behave. One documentary point specific to the region: entry at the northern and north-eastern crossings has not always been administered by the federal and Kurdistan Region authorities on the same basis, and the arrangement has changed more than once, so ask a licensed customs broker which authority clears your entry and whether a further formality attaches to onward movement into the rest of Iraq before you contract. Nothing above says any of these crossings is open, running to a schedule, or accepting bitumen — that is geography, and the current position has to come from your forwarder in writing and dated.
What changes in the paperwork between a sea arrival and a land crossing?
More than most buyers expect. The transport document changes from a bill of lading — a negotiable document of title a bank can hold security against — to a road consignment note, which is a receipt and a contract of carriage but not a document of title, so a letter of credit drafted around a marine bill of lading simply cannot be satisfied overland. The Incoterms rule changes from the sea rules, FOB, CFR and CIF against a port, to the any-mode rules, FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU and DDP against a named place; and a country name is not a place. Customs entry moves from port customs to a frontier post. The failure mode moves from berth waiting and container demurrage to vehicle queueing and standing time, and with it the question of who pays for the wait. Insurance changes from a marine cargo policy to inland transit cover, and carrier liability under a road convention is limited by weight and is not cargo insurance. The unit of packing changes from a container to a truck load. What stays the same is the core: invoice, packing list with tare excluded, certificate of origin, safety data sheet and a batch-specific Certificate of Analysis, with the goods description word for word identical across all of them.
Can we buy in bulk in a heated road tanker, or should it be drums?
Both are possible in Iraq and the honest answer depends on the leg and on your plant. Bulk over a short land crossing is genuinely practical in a way it never is across an ocean: it removes packaging cost, drum handling and drum disposal, and the product goes straight into the plant tank. A heated tanker crossing into the southern or central plain and discharging at a properly equipped asphalt plant is the clearest case for it. The condition sits entirely at the receiving end and it is not a formality — you need heated storage, a discharge pump and line, and the ability to take the whole load promptly, because a tanker that waits at a frontier and cools is an operational problem rather than a delay. Drums need none of that: they can be handled without a terminal crane, stored on site through a shutdown, heated one unit at a time, taken in partial loads, and a damaged drum costs one drum rather than the consignment. For a long haul, a mountain route in winter, or a receiving site whose equipment is anything less than certain, new steel drums remain the sound default. Specify them as new; reconditioned drums are the most common source of contamination disputes anywhere, and a cargo passing through several handovers gives that argument more places to start.
When is the Iraqi construction season, and how does reconstruction demand affect availability?
Iraq’s rain falls in winter rather than summer, which inverts the seasonal logic of the monsoon markets. In the far south, laying continues through most of the year and the difficulty at the height of summer is crew welfare and compaction control rather than weather stoppage. In Baghdad and the central plain the season is bounded by winter rain between roughly November and April. In the northern plain around Mosul and Kirkuk the winter is genuinely wet and the window narrower. In the Kurdistan Region and on the Zagros approaches, snow and freeze-thaw close both the work and, at times, the mountain routes themselves. On top of that, Iraqi demand is reconstruction-driven and project-led rather than smooth: it arrives when budgets are approved and packages are awarded, so several large requirements can start in the same weeks and compete for the same binder, the same drums and the same haulage. The practical defence is to order ahead of the window rather than into it, and to hold drummed material under cover on site so that it is available on the first workable day.
Where to go next
Two neighbouring pages cover the rest of the region a buyer here is usually comparing against.
- Bitumen supply to the UAE — the other extreme hot-climate market, reached entirely by sea, with a free-zone re-export function Iraq does not have
- The regional overview — how the Middle East markets differ from one another on climate, grade and routing
- Kuwait — the market immediately south, where the overland comparison is live in the same way
- Jordan — the western neighbour, with one seaport and a transit role of its own
Request a quotation for delivery to Iraq
Send the grade, tonnage and packing, and — before anything else — the actual destination: the city, plant or project site, not just the country. That is what decides whether the offer is built on a sea arrival at Umm Qasr or on a land crossing, and it changes the delivery term, the transport document and the packing unit. State the Incoterms 2020 rule you want quoted. Attach the tender’s binder clause if you hold it, and the offer will be checked against it line by line — including the ageing procedure, the measured softening point, and where in the grade band the batch has to sit — which for an Iraqi summer is the line most likely to decide how the pavement performs. Contact is by WhatsApp on +971 56 144 5733.