Binladin, Thales win Saudi rail contract

French defence group Thales and construction group Saudi Binladin Group were awarded a SAR1.7 billion (Dh1.7bn) contract yesterday to build Saudi Arabia's North-South Railway. The Binladin Group is also in the final bid for a railway project that will run from Riyadh to Qassim, an official told Emirates Business . "The project is called NSR CTW400 and the route will run from Riyadh to Qassim. It involves the tracklaying, and civil works for the project. We are in the bidding stage and the results will be announced this month," said Mohammed Abdul Qadeer, chief secretary at the railway division at Bin Ladin. He did not disclose the value. Meanwhile, the joint venture with Thales was awarded yesterday wherein the two companies will build signalling, ticketing, communications and security systems for the entire 2,300-kilometre stretch of the railroad. "We submitted the bid on November 24, 2008, for the SNT 100, as it is known. We received the official letter in January this year," said Qadeer. "We were awarded the contract today." China's CSR Corp and the US firm ElectroMotive also won contracts to supply respectively wagons and locomotives for the railway, according to an AFP report. The line will link rich bauxite and phosphorus mines in the far north of the Kingdom with planned Gulf coast processing and export facilities at Ras Al Zour. The companies signed the contracts at the finance ministry, which will fund the project, projected to cost a total of about $3.5bn (Dh12.8bn) when completed in 2011-2012, said the report. "This is a strategic win for our company," said Olivier Houssin, Thales' Executive Vice-President for commercial and security operations. "It is an area where we want to expand." Houssin said Thales also hopes to take part in the Saudi east-west Landbridge rail project, involving 1,100km of new track, the second of three huge multi-billion dollar rail projects the government is developing. The third is a 444km high-speed railway link between the cities of Makkah and Medina via Jeddah. Houssin said the French firm Thales was also trying to win a deal for the one-billion-dollar Saudi security fence, an interior ministry project aimed at securing the porous northern border with physical and high-tech barriers and monitoring. Keep up with the latest business news from the region with the Emirates Business 24|7 daily newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, please click here .