A view of the new Hamad Port.
After its inauguration tomorrow, Hamad Port will be handling all commercial shipments entering or leaving the country, the rush of trucks on Corniche road is also expected to fall providing relief to motorists commuting on the route. Hamad Port will start full operations from tomorrow and Doha Port will be closed to all commercial vessel traffic but will continue to receive only cruise ships. After March 31 next year, Doha Port will be totally closed.
The Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti has recently said the drilling and development works on Doha Port site will start early April next year, with a budgetary cost of about QR2bn.
The Minister said the Ministry of Transport and Communications would execute two main parts of Doha Port’s development project including the main canal and the port maintenance. After redevelopment, Doha Port will serve as a destination of cruise ships and tourism only.
Previously, to tackle the problem of trucks on Doha roads, the Traffic Department had decided to restrict the movement of trucks inside Doha during peak hours.
As operations at Doha Port will be shut down from tomorrow for commercial vessels, container ships will go to QR27bn Hamad Port in Umm Al-Houl, Mesaieed. Hamad Port went through a soft launch two years ago in December 2014.
Since July 2015 when the port received first commercial ship, it has received cars and livestock to gradually build operational capability. The port is expected to become fully functional as per its maximum-designed-capacity by 2020. Once completed, Hamad Port will cover a site of around 20km² and will be able to handle a combined annual capacity in excess of six million containers per year through its three container terminals.
