Etihad suspends tender process for second stage railway line

Dubai: Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Rail has suspended the tender process for stage two of the project, which is due to take the line west to the UAE’s border with Saudi Arabia and east to Dubai and Oman, according to a statement on Tuesday.
The richest of the UAE’s seven emirates derives 51 per cent of its gross domestic product from oil, putting state spending under pressure after the price of crude slumped to $30 a barrel. HSBC this month trimmed its 2015 growth estimate for the UAE as a whole to 2.3 per cent from 2.4 per cent.
Etihad Rail, which has pledged to spend Dh40 billion ($11 billion) on its part of the pan-Gulf network, put the bidding on hold after suggesting on January 17 that tenders were in their final stages, even after the company dismissed one-third of its workforce, citing a need to streamline operations.
“We have been working closely with our partners and stakeholders to assess our strategic priorities for the year,” chairman Nasser Alsowaidi said in Tuesday’s release. Stage two of the plan is now frozen while the company ponders “the most appropriate timing for this investment,” he said.
The decision will have no impact on the stage one route, which recently commenced commercial operations after safety clearances were granted in December and links a number of industrial installations west of Abu Dhabi city, Etihad Rail said.
The Gulf Cooperation Council Rail Network aims to span the six GCC nations, running from close to the borders of Iraq in Kuwait via the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, with links to Qatar and Bahrain, into the UAE and on to Oman. A notional deadline of 2018 for the work still stands, though some of the countries have yet to start laying down track.