Tata Steel secures Mecca rail deal
London: Tata Steel in UK announced it had won a multi- million pound Saudi rail contract for the project linking the two Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Tata Steel will supply 60,000 tonnes of rail for the new high- speed line linking Mecca and Medina.
Tata Steel in UK on Thursday announced it had won a multi- million pound Saudi rail contract for the project linking the two Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Tata Steel will supply 60,000 tonnes of highquality rail for the new high- speed line linking Mecca and Medina, which are 444 km distant from each other.
Steel for the project will be made at the Indianowned company’s plant in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England. It will be rolled into rail in lengths of 25 metres at Scunthorpe and at the Tata Steel plant in Hayange, northern France. Work on producing the rail will start at the end of this year and is expected to continue throughout 2014, Tata Steel said, but did not give the details of the financial aspects of the deal.
The work on producing the rail will start at the end of this year, Tata Steel said, and is expected to continue throughout 2014. “Tata Steel is delighted to be contributing to this high- speed line, which will have to overcome some major challenges presented by building a high- capacity rail line across some of the most extreme terrain in the world,” Gérard Glas, rail sector head for Tata Steel, said in a statement, adding that “the prestigious project will see the holy cities being linked by rail for the first time.”
The Haramain HighSpeed Rail Project started in 2009 with an estimated cost of more than 12 billion. The new rail line between the two cities is set to open to the public in late 2014 or early 2015. Haramain means “two holy places” in Arabic: Mecca is the location of the revelation of the Holy Quran and Medina is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. The project will be run and maintained by a group of Spanish infrastructure, construction and technology companies.