The first phase of Qatar’s Hamad Port, formerly known as the New Port Project, will open to commercial vessels on 1 December, following a successful soft opening, which began a year earlier.

All containers ships visiting Doha will use the new QR27bn ($7.4bn) port and the old Doha Port will be closed to all commercial vessels except cruise ships. The old port will be shut down completely by 31 March 2017.

A joint venture, QTerminals, has also been formed between Qatar Navigation (Milaha) and Qatar Ports to operate and maintain the new port, according to a local media report.

The old port will be converted into a cruise ship terminal, with Qatar’s Transport & Communications Ministry recently tendering a contract to design and build a cruise terminal at the same location.

Hamad Port is being built in three phases on a 26-square-kilometre area north of Mesaieed.

The first phase will have a capacity of 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) a year, in addition to 2 million tonnes of general cargo. By 2025, when fully operational, the second to fifth phases of the new port will involve adding a new container terminal in each phase that will take capacity to more than 12 million TEUs.

A team of Australia’s WorleyParsons and Royal Haskoning of the Netherlands drew up the engineering designs for the first phase of the port, while the US’ Aecom was awarded a six-year contract to provide programme management services.

In March 2011, an $880m contract was awarded to China Harbour Engineering Company for the excavation of 58 million cubic metres of material and the construction of 8km of quay wall and 5km of breakwater. In March 2012, a consortium of Belgium’s Dredging International and the local Medco was awarded the access channel package.

In the first quarter of 2013, the first terminal contract package was awarded to the local Teyseer Contracting Company in a joint venture with Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Group (Offshore). A joint venture of the local HBK Contracting and India’s Afcons Infrastructure won a QR820m ($225m) deal in September 2013, covering two new commercial terminals.

A further QR1.1bn contract was awarded to a team led by South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction for canal excavation and dredging work for an access channel connecting to Economic Zone 3, a self-contained development to be built next to the port.

Hamad Port is also envisaged to become the centre of Qatar’s maritime security with a new base for the Qatar Emiri Naval Forces planned at the port.