The removal, to be followed by dredging, is seen as essential to reopening main channels to Iraq's two major commercial ports at Umm Qasr and Al-Zubair.

"We are concentrating on the main wrecks in the channel leading to the ports and on pollution containment after the ships are removed," Michel Gauttier, UNDP Regional Infrastructure Manager, told a press conference.

Based on projections, the removal would cost some 120 million dollars, of which the UNDP has about 30 million dollars, Gautier said.

"The larger wrecks are about 41 but the total sunken ships is around 500," of which 282 have been identified and located, he said.

UNDP technical advisor Paul Clifford said the large wrecks include two big oil tankers sunk in 1992 between Kuwait's Bubiyan island and Khour Abdullah in the northern Gulf.

One of the tankers contains some 5,000 tonnes of heavy crude oil, while the second is split into two parts with crude and mud on board, he said. The original loads of the two tankers combined is believed to be 60,000 tonnes.

There are also seven barges which together contain around 15,000 tonnes of heavy crude, Clifford said. Half of the large wrecks contain ordnance while the other half is also suspected of containing explosives.

Gautier said the UNDP, in association with other partners, removed some 31 wrecks from Umm Qasr port between June 2003 and June this year in a process that cost 50 million dollars.

Dregding operations are due to start in the port in November and will take five months to complete at a cost of 24 million dollars donated by Japan, he said.

UNDP said in a statement Tuesday that the sunken vessels in the waters between Kuwait and Iraq are blocking access to Iraq's main seaports and threatening marine life in the northern Gulf.

Many of the vessels sank as a result of military action in the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war, the 1991 Gulf War in which a US-led international coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, it said.

UNDP said the cost of removing the larger wrecks runs from one million dollars to eight million dollars per vessel, but removing the ships impeding access and restoring channels to their original depth would cost 34 million dollars.

However, it is estimated that savings for Iraq, which spends an additional 190 million dollars a year by importing goods overland, would far exceed the cost of port rehabilitation if it imports by sea.

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