German/Indian joint venture starts work on GCC rail

6 August 2025

 

A joint venture of German consultancy Dornier and India's Balaji Railroad Systems has been awarded a contract to prepare the operational plan for the GCC rail scheme.

In October last year, MEED exclusively reported that the evaluation of bids was in the final stages.

The General Secretariat of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf is the authority leading the development of the project. Officials from the secretariat told MEED last year that a deadline of 2030 has been set for the project to be operational.

The secretariat has also invited consultants to bid for another contract to prepare an asset management data sharing system study for the scheme. The tender was issued on 5 August with a bid submission deadline of 6 October.

The GCC railway project has continued to make progress since the official announcement by the GCC secretariat in January 2021, which effectively restarted the project. A string of recent moves and statements has meant all six GCC states have either declared or signalled their plans for their sections of the rail network.

GCC leaders approved the establishment of the GCC Rail Authority in January 2022. The company was entrusted with overall policymaking and coordination among member states to ensure the smooth delivery and operation of the scheme.

GCC railway line

According to the overall plan, the railway line will stretch over 2,177 kilometres (km) starting from Kuwait, through Dammam in Saudi Arabia, to Bahrain across a causeway to be constructed between the two countries, and from Dammam to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and finally to Muscat through Sohar in Oman.

The rail length within the member states is 684km in the UAE, 663km in Saudi Arabia, 306km in Oman, 283km in Qatar, 145km in Kuwait and 36km in Bahrain.

The project has been designed to have a passenger speed of 220 km an hour (km/h) and for freight trains of 80-120km/h.

With high levels of project activity, governments in spending mode and the agreements under the Al-Ula Declaration, the latest efforts to restart the GCC railway project may make more progress than previous attempts. If the railway is finally completed, it could prove transformational for a region that feels connected to the world but divided between its constituent parts.

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Yasir Iqbal
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    Steady spending

    An estimated $17.8bn was spent on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for chemicals projects in 2024, with spending year-to-date of about $5.8bn, MEED Projects says.

    The region’s biggest chemicals project under EPC execution is the $11bn Amiral project in Saudi Arabia, which represents the expansion of Saudi Aramco Total Refining & Petrochemical Company (Satorp) in the petrochemicals sector. 

    Satorp, in which Saudi Aramco and France’s TotalEnergies hold 62.5% and 37.5% stakes, respectively, operates a
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    The complex includes two polyethylene trains with a combined output of 1.68 million t/y of high-density polyethylene polymer products, raising Qatar’s overall petrochemicals production capacity by 82%, to almost 14 million t/y.

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