DHAHRAN: Sadara Chemical Co. and Saudi Railway Co. (SAR) have announced their intention to design and construct a railway network in Jubail to transport Sadara's products from the manufacturing facilities at its complex, which is currently being built in the Jubail Industrial City II, via trains to King Fahd Industrial Port and Jubail Commercial Port.
This comes as part of the memorandum of understanding signed last month between SAR and Sadara, represented by its parents Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical, which aims to study, design, and build a railway network to link the huge industrial complex with export facilities at King Fahd Industrial Port and Jubail Commercial Port through trains and freight cars to transport products from Sadara, its affiliated factories, and other upcoming industries in the area. SAR will build and operate the railway network.
The MOU's related documents were exchanged in a meeting held recently in Dhahran and attended by officials from Sadara, SAR, Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical. The creation of the new rail network represents an unprecedented initiative in the area, as Sadara will rely on trains as the main mode of transportation to transport liquid and solid chemical products.
In the meeting, future plans were also discussed for the new railway project, whose construction designs are expected to be completed in 2012. The railway's actual operation date is expected to be in 2014.
The initiative is expected to yield a number of positive results, as it will encourage other companies to resort to trains as a means of transportation. Given that trains are safer than other means, and if more companies switch to trains, it will contribute to the improvement of safety levels and minimize road accidents by eventually decreasing the number of car and truck traffic on highways.
SAR Chief Executive Rumaih Al-Rumaih expressed his delight at the cooperation deal with Sadara. "We are proud of this step as this will move the project to the next phase of detailed study and design. We are optimistic about the results of the study which is conducted by a work team consisting of employees from both parties, and look forward to more positive results in the future," he said.
He also added that the project, the first of its kind in the Middle East in terms of transporting chemical products, and the first of its kind in the Kingdom, would offer more flexibility and additional options for industries to use various transportation means. The project will also guarantee transportation of Sadara's chemical products safely to various cities and ports in the Kingdom as soon as the Jubail-Dammam railway line is completed, in addition to Riyadh-Jeddah railway, which will provide additional export options from other ports.
Al-Rumaih also pointed to the memorandum of understanding that was signed earlier with Saudi Aramco to study ways in which it could benefit from the railway system to transport its products from its facilities in Jubail to other facilities in Al-Jouf and Turaif.
Sadara Chief Executive Ali Abuali said the cooperation with SAR would make his company as the first one in the Middle East to use rail lines to transport chemical products. He pointed out that using the railway system to transport chemical products would be one of the safest and environmentally friendly modes of transportation, as it would eliminate the need to use more than 500 trucks per day to transport products from Sadara's manufacturing plants to JCP and KFIP.
© Arab News 2011
