Most Foshan shippers assume a rolled container means the carrier overbooked the vessel. It almost never does. On the Iraq trade, the most common reason a box stays on the quay is that the vessel's **draft allowance at Umm Qasr was already exhausted** before your container was ever lifted. The **Foshan to Umm Qasr sailing schedule** looks like a timetable problem. In reality it is a weight problem, and it starts several thousand kilometres away from the berth.

![Freight image](https://zhongdong123.cn/image/A006.jpg)

### What the Umm Qasr Draft Cutoff Actually Means

Umm Qasr is not a deep-water port in the way **Jebel Ali** or **Hamad Port** is. The North Port and South Port berths sit behind a long, shallow approach channel, and vessels can only enter and berth inside a narrow tidal window. Every voyage therefore has a **maximum intake** — a total tonnage the ship can carry, still enter on the tide, discharge, and sail again.

When bookings for a voyage exceed that intake, the carrier applies a **draft cutoff**. It stops accepting heavy bookings and, if the ship is already full, offloads the heaviest containers at the load port. The vessel still sails with a full deck. It simply sails lighter than the manifest suggested. Your container is the one that moves to the next voyage.

### Why Foshan Cargo Gets Cut First

Foshan's export mix to Iraq is dense. Ceramic tiles, sanitaryware, aluminium profiles, furniture, **machinery** and **building materials** are all heavy relative to their volume. A 20GP of tiles can reach 26 to 28 tonnes, close to lifting and road limits.

A draft cutoff is a weight cutoff. The first boxes to be rolled are almost always the heavy, dense ones — exactly what Foshan ships. Light, bulky cargo is rarely affected.

> Rule of thumb: if your 20GP weighs more than roughly 22 tonnes, treat the draft cutoff as a risk on every booking, not an exception.

### Pitfall 1: Treating the Foshan to Umm Qasr Sailing Schedule as One Cut-off

Most China–Iraq services are not direct. Cargo loads at Nansha, Shekou or Yantian, tranships at a Gulf hub such as **Jebel Ali**, **Dammam** or **Hamad Port**, then moves to Umm Qasr on a feeder. Red Sea cargo often routes via **Jeddah** instead, with a different draft and congestion profile.

That means **two cut-offs and two draft limits**: the SI cut-off in China and the connection cut-off at the hub. A box can clear China cleanly and still be rolled in the **UAE** because the Umm Qasr feeder is tighter on draft than the mother vessel.

### Pitfall 2: Late or "Optimistic" VGM

The verified gross mass declaration has a hard deadline before loading. Miss it and the container is not loaded — there is no negotiation window. Worse is under-declaring weight to slip under a draft limit. Terminals re-weigh, the carrier raises an **amendment**, and an inaccurate box becomes the easiest one to bump when the cutoff lands.

### Pitfall 3: Confusing the SI Cut-off with the Draft Cut-off

These are different problems with different fixes. The **SI cut-off** is documentation: shipping instructions, manifest data, consignee details. The draft cutoff is physics. A full day spent chasing SI amendments will not put a 27-tonne container back onto a vessel that has run out of intake.

### Pitfall 4: Booking Heavy FCL Without a Weight Confirmation

Booking platforms accept a 28-tonne 20GP by default. That is commercial acceptance, not physical acceptance. For any heavy **FCL** shipment to Iraq, ask for written confirmation of the vessel's intake allowance for that specific voyage. For smaller heavy consignments, **LCL** groupage is weight-balanced by the consolidator, which reduces the chance that your cartons are the ones cut — but the consolidation itself can still be rolled.

### Pitfall 5: Ignoring the Second Leg and the Rate Picture

Routing changes push more tonnage through **Jebel Ali**, **Dammam** and **Hamad Port**, and the **Red Sea surcharge** and war-risk premiums move with it. When a feeder is draft-limited, the rollover cost — storage, demurrage, re-handling — lands on whoever booked **DDP** without agreeing who pays.

**Dangerous goods** and **lithium batteries** need a separate warning: they cannot simply be rolled into the next sailing. They require re-approval, and a missed connection can mean weeks rather than days.

### Problem, Cause, Fix — At a Glance

| Symptom | What is really happening | What to do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Box rolled after SI was confirmed | Vessel intake exceeded; draft cutoff at Umm Qasr | Confirm weight allowance before booking; split dense cargo |
| Cleared China, stuck at the hub | Feeder to Umm Qasr is draft-limited; second cut-off missed | Track the connection cut-off, not just the SI cut-off |
| Carrier requests a re-weigh | VGM under-declared or submitted late | Submit accurate VGM before the stated deadline |
| Rollover charges billed to you | DDP terms with no rollover clause | Agree in writing who bears storage and re-handling |

### A Practical Pre-Booking Checklist

1. Declare the true gross weight and VGM at booking — never round down.
2. Ask the carrier for the vessel's draft and intake allowance for that specific voyage.
3. Book heavy FCL two to three weeks ahead so you sit in the first allocation.
4. Split dense cargo into more 20GP units rather than fewer 40HQ units where the numbers work.
5. Compare discharging at a Gulf hub plus inland movement against waiting for the next Umm Qasr feeder.
6. Confirm the SI cut-off, VGM deadline and hub connection cut-off in writing, in local time.
7. For DDP shipments, fix in writing who pays storage and re-handling if the box is rolled.
8. Keep **Saudi** and **Qatar** requirements separate — **SABER** and **SASO** certification follow different timelines from Iraq clearance.

### If the Rollover Has Already Happened

Get the rollover reason in writing from the carrier, not a verbal explanation from a chat group. If it is an intake decision, ask for the next available sailing and the revised connection date at the hub. Then check whether the storage and re-handling charges are recoverable under your DDP terms before you absorb them.

Weight, not dates, is what governs the **Foshan to Umm Qasr sailing schedule** on the Iraq trade. Before booking, ask your forwarder for three numbers in writing: the vessel's draft allowance, the VGM deadline, and the transhipment connection cut-off. If your cargo is dense — tiles, **machinery**, **building materials** — assume the Umm Qasr draft cutoff will touch you at some point, and plan around weight rather than the timetable.