Spain's ArcelorMittal Asturias has supplied 60,000 tonnes of rail and 1,000t of profiles and plates for the construction of the Haramain High Speed Rail Project in Saudi Arabia, the steelmaker tells Kallanish.

The 450km high speed railway line will link the holy cities of Mecca and Medina via Jeddah, where the infrastructure will connect with the national network. The new railway line is expected to be completed by 2016, when the infrastructure will guarantee transport for approximately three million passengers a year. Trains will reach speeds of up to 300 km/h.

The project is part of the 10,000km three phase Saudi Railway Masterplan which is expected to be completed by 2040, Kallanish learns from the Saudi Railways Organisation.

Elsewhere, a Spanish consortium has recently started boring the first tunnel of the 176km long Riyadh metro in Saudi Arabia’s capital city. The project will require 600,000t of steel, according to FCC a Spanish contractor involved in the project.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is currently developing the 2,117km Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) railway project, which is intended to connect Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The investment for the construction of the international infrastructure system is estimated to reach $100 billion and require approximately 700,000-1 million tonnes of rails, sources in the industry say. As there are currently no rail mills in the GCC, the entire requirements will be imported.

An estimated $45 billion, a third of the planned GCC railway project budget before 2030, is currently committed to upgrading existing lines and building the new rail networks across Saudi Arabia.

Source: Saudi Railways Organisation