The technical and commercial evaluation of bids for the contract to deepen the access channel serving Hamad Port in Qatar is expected to be completed soon.

Contractors that submitted a bid for the contract in December last year are understood to include:

• China Harbour Engineering Company (China)
• Jan de Nul (Belgium)
• Middle East Dredging Company (Medco ­– local / Belgium)
• Royal Boskalis Westminster (Netherlands)
• Van Oord (Netherlands)
• Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company (US)

The scope of the contract entails deepening the access channel from 16 metres to 18 metres so that it is the same depth as the port basin.

The dredging work is part of the plans to expand Hamad Port. These include the addition of a second and third container terminal, which will increase annual handling capacity to 6 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2020, up from the 2 million TEUs capacity the facility has when it opened in December last year.