October 12, 2002	Saturday	Sha'aban 5, 1423

RIYADH, Oct 11: Dammam based Saudi Railways Organization has invited foreign firms to submit expressions of interest (EoIs) for a consultancy contract for the proposed almost 1,600km east-west coast rail line, connecting Dammam to Jeddah.

Pakistani labour and expertise have played a significant role in the laying down of the only existing railway track in the Kingdom, connecting the capital Riyadh to Dammam on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. It is anticipated that Pakistani labour may again play a significant role in the laying down of this new railway track. Chief of the Saudi Railways Organization Khalid Al-Yahya has also visited Pakistan sometime back, apparently to look into the possibility of using Pakistani manpower and expertise in laying down this new track.

The project requires international companies to provide provisional, financial and technical advisory services to promote private sector participation in the construction and operation of the railway lines.

The proposed 950km railway link will connect Riyadh and Jeddah and a second 115km line will connect Dammam to the industrial city of Jubail. Both these lines, as per the plans, will be connected to the existing railway track between Riyadh and the Gulf coast. Thus Dammam and Jubail would be connected to Jeddah on the West coast through this proposed new railway link.

The selected consulting company would also be required to work on a feasibility study for an extension of the proposed railway track to link the cities of Makkah, Jeddah, Madina and Yanbu. Hijaz Railways, during the Ottoman period was connecting Hijaz to countries as far as Syria through Jordan. Remnants of the old Hijaz Railways could still be seen in some of the cities of the Kingdom, such as Tabuk, from where the trains used to pass through while transporting pilgrims to Hijaz and back. Later on this service came to an end. Some plans also indicate extending this track in the near future to other Arab countries on the pattern of the old Hijaz Railways.

The project is expected to be completed by 2010. The director general of the Saudi Railways Organization was quoted as estimating the cost of the new track at around SR10 billion. However, some other estimates indicate a higher tag on the proposed east-west railway line.

The above railway project is also closely linked with the development of a second industrial railway to transport bauxite and phosphate to Jubail from the north of the Kingdom. This $2,000 million project will involve the extraction of phosphates from Al-Jalamid area in the far north of the Kingdom. The ore will then be transferred, through the proposed line, to Jubail. Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) and Saudi Oger, tied up in a joint venture to carry out this project, are about to appoint financial and legal consultant for this project, to transport ores to Jubail through the proposed railway lines.

As per the programme the minerals thus transported will then be processed into fertilizers, including di-ammonium phosphates in Jubail.

Things seem to be moving fast on developing new railway networks in the vast Kingdom.