Qatar’s New Port Project Steering Committee is preparing for a second and third container terminal expansion, even while it completes construction on the $7.3bn first phase of Hamad Port.

Formerly known as New Doha Port, the deep-water facility is being built on a 26-square-kilometre area north of Mesaieed.

The port is being built in three phases. 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.

 Plans for the container terminal involve:

• Constructing a quay wall 1,200 metres long in the first phase, 2,400 metres in the second phase and 3,600 metres in the third phase;
• Dredging the approach channel to a water depth of 18 metres to accommodate the largest container vessels;
• Establishing a port with capacity of 2 million TEUs in the first phase, 4 million TEUs in the second phase and 6 million TEUs in the third phase.

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

In March 2011, the steering committee awarded a $880m contract 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.

The award of several packages on the 4.5-sq-km naval base, called Qatar Emiri Naval Forces Base (QENFB), has been delayed, apart from those on the quay wall, basin revetments and the infrastructure and utility buildings.

The port project has faced some challenges during its construction, but nothing serious enough to throw it off course. The environmental impact of the development has also had to be controlled, but corals, sea grass and mangroves that could have been damaged by the dredging works have successfully been relocated.