GCC Railway Network in Saudi Arabia

GCC Railway Network in Saudi Arabia.

Estimated cost US$250 billion.

With the work continuing the rest of the project, according to the General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) the UAE has completed the implementation of the project on its side up to borders with Saudi Arabia, and other members are completing the necessary requirements to implement the project.

GCC Railway Network
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

Several steps have been achieved in the project so far, including the completion of several studies, estimates on the number of passengers and goods, and the establishment of the Gulf Railways Authority.

Work is underway to complete the implementation of the project, cost of which was estimated by the economic study at around $15 billion, in member states to train the nationals to operate the project and to cooperate with international organizations with expertise in railways.

The decision to establish a railway project linking the member countries was approved by the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to facilitate the movement of goods, citizens, and residents within the region, which will also boost the economies.

The planned railway would begin at Kuwait City, pass through Dammam and Al Batha Port in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain in the UAE, and then enter Oman through Suhar before terminating at Muscat.

From Dammam, branches will link to Bahrain through the proposed King Hamad Causeway, and to Qatar via Salwa port.

The proposed Qatar–Bahrain Causeway between Bahrain and Qatar will provide additional connectivity.

After entering Bahrain from Dammam, the first station on the line will be at Khalifa bin Salman Port, followed by stations at the Bahrain International Airport and Amwaj Islands.

From Amwaj, the line will head to Qatar.

The total length of the track is estimated at 2,117 km, according to the website of the GCC and the speed of passenger trains is scheduled to be approximately 220 km per hour, and freight trains between 80 to 120 km per hour, using diesel to generate electric power.

The project is estimated to cost US$250 billion.

The GCC railway network will connect the UAE with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman and is expected to be ready by 2024.

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Abujar Gold mine Project in Cote D’Ivoire

Abujar Gold mine Project in Cote D’Ivoire.

Construction of the Abujar Gold mine project in Cote D’Ivoire.

Amount – $2 billion.

Abujar Gold mine
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

Tietto Minerals has tabled a lovely set of definitive feasibility numbers for its Abujar gold project in Africa that it says will make over A$2 billion in EBITDA over the initial 11-year mine life.

The company has estimated an extraordinary pre-tax net present value of A$1.3 billion for the project and says it can pay back the US$200 million in capital required to build it in less than a year with an off the scale internal rate of return of 115 per cent.

The DFS numbers have significantly outperformed its initially estimated pre-feasibility figures.

Production is now projected to increase by 30 per cent in the first year to a whopping 260,000 ounces and by 20 per cent across the initial 6 years of production to 1.2 million ounces, averaging around 200,000 ounces a year a figure that would place it amongst the mining glitterati if the mine was in Western Australia.

The definitive feasibility study has boosted ore reserves at the project by 68 per cent over pre-feasibility numbers to 34.4 million tones at 1.3 g/t gold for 1.45 million ounces. Interestingly 78 percent of the new reserve now sits at the higher confidence indicated category.

On January 2023, Tietto Minerals, a gold explorer, and developer, has commenced wet commissioning at its Abujar Gold mine Project in Cote D’Ivoire.

A sizable supply of ore has already been set up to supply the processing plant, which the company has already started commissioning.

Abujar should consequently result in a considerable rise in gold production in Cote D’Ivoire in 2023.

Abidjan is one step closer to its objective of raising production to 65 tones of gold by 2025.

The stellar results increased Tiettos initial life of mine inventory, inclusive of ore reserves, to 44.9 million tones at 1.2 g/t gold for 1.7 million ounces of gold.

Tiettos Abujar Gold Project in western Cote D’Ivoire is a mere 30 kilometers from Daloa, the nation’s major regional city and according to the company, this will aid in the projects continued development.

The Abujar gold project includes three continuous tenements over a highly prospective and largely uncharted land package of 1,114 square kilometres.

A 70km gold corridor strikes across each of these tenements.

Life of mine revenues are expected to weigh in at a hefty US$2.87 billion with pre-tax free cash flows contributing US$1.28 billion to the $190 million market capped company.

Market pundits were quick to lap up news of the increased production figures with Tiettos stock touching $0.44 in intraday trading of a closing price yesterday of $0.38.

Notably, it still has a few opportunities to increase its DFS production figures even further including a 30,000m infill drilling program to increase the measured resource and a 5,000m campaign targeting ore reserves below the Abujar pit.

The company also plans to drill 20 exploration targets close to Abujar.

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COVID 19 Crisis Recovery Facility in India

COVID 19 Crisis Recovery Facility in India.

PROPOSED FUNDING AMOUNT – USD500 million.

Creating A Coordinated and Responsive Indian Social Protection System (ccrisp).

COVID 19 Crisis Recovery Facility
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

The objective of the program is to strengthen the capability of the state and the national governments in India to respond to the needs of informal workers through a resilient and coordinated social protection system.

This program is proposed under the COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility (the Facility) of the Bank and co-financed with the World Bank (WB) as a development Policy Financing (DPF) under WBs policy on Development Policy Financing (DPF Policy).

The proposed program will provide the Government of India (GoI) with budget support to mitigate the severe adverse social and economic impact of COVID-19.

Specifically, the program supports India’s efforts to modernize its social protection system to serve the risks and needs emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid urbanization, structural transformations in the labour market and climate change.

Relieving the social and economic distress amongst the most vulnerable groups affected by the COVID 19 pandemic informal workers, migrant workers and returnee migrant workers is at the core of the operation.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL INFORMATION –

The loan will be co-financed with WB as lead co-financier, and the programs environmental and social (ES) risks and impacts have been assessed in accordance with WBs DPF Policy.

AIIBs Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) was designed to apply to investment projects and has no provisions for its application to DPF operations.

Therefore, as permitted by the decision of AIIBs Board of Directors set forth in the Decisions to Support the COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility, WBs DPF Policy will apply to this operation in lieu of AIIBs ESP.

This will ensure a harmonized approach to addressing the environmental and social (ES) risks and impacts of the program.

WB has conducted assessments under its DPF Policy to determine whether the proposed operation is likely to

(i) cause significant social consequences and poverty levels (especially on the poor and vulnerable sections of the society), and

(ii) have significant impact on the country’s environment, forests, and natural resources.

Given that mitigating the social and economic distress among the vulnerable groups is at the core of the operation, WB has determined that the proposed interventions are likely to have largely positive social impacts.

The program focuses on directly transferring social protection benefits to women and provides extra weightage to the tribal households in targeting of benefits (due to the constitutional protection accorded to these groups).

The program will provide fast and flexible cash support to address ecological and climate-based vulnerabilities.

The program will also incentivize allocation of resources available to cities based on achievements on air.

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Rail Logistics Project in India

Rail Logistics Project.

Commitment Amount: US$ 250.00 million.

Rail Logistics
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

The project development objective is to enhance green multimodal logistics service along the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor and to develop institutional capacity of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited and Ministry of Railways to de liver commercially sustainable Rail infrastructure and freight transport services.

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High Speed Rail Project in Netherlands

High Speed Rail Project

High Speed Rail
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

Project Value: 6.7 billion euros ($8124 million)

The HSL-Zuid Project will provide the Dutch with a 300-kph railway from Amsterdam southwards to the Belgian border, a distance of some 100km.

Journey times between Amsterdam and Paris or Brussels will be reduced by over an hour, and in some places internal domestic travel times will be halved – i.e. Amsterdam to Breda, or Rotterdam.

The total cost is around 6.7 billion euros, but the building of the substructure and railway infrastructure it carries, are being met by a public private partnership arrangement requiring no initial government investment.

The contracts cover both construction and 30 years maintenance. Following completion, the Netherlands government will pay around 106 million euros (excluding VAT) each year as an availability fee but they will offset this with the 148 million euros they expect to receive each year from the train operator as user fees.

This project is unique as the substructure for the railway, which includes all bridges, earthworks and tunnels, is provided by the Dutch State; everything on top of this is contained within a PPP. Scott Wilson and the project team are very proud to be working on Europe’s largest rail PPP project, and the project won the European PPP Project of the Year award in 2001.

Scott Wilsons involvement on the project can be traced back to the year 2000.

Our services are two fold: technical due diligence advice to the lending banks during the period up to financial close, and monitoring and certification work during the whole 30 year concession period for this finance, design, build, operation and maintenance contract.

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Ammunition Manufacturing Complex In India

To Build Ammunition Manufacturing Complex in Uttar Pradesh (India).

Ammunition
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

Government of Uttar Pradesh signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the eve of Global Investors’ Summit in Lucknow to set up South Asia’s largest integrated manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor.

In his address at the UP summit, Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group highlighted the importance of having self-reliance in high quality ammunition and the manufacturing complex is Adani Defence’s endeavour towards equipping our Armed Forces with state-of-the-art battlefield equipment.

This project is going to prove as a landmark in the history of indigenous defence manufacturing.

The ammunition complex will have state-of-the-art technology across small and medium calibre ammunition, along with short-range air defence missiles.

It shall be a key facilitator in India’s goal of achieving $5.0 billion exports in defence manufacturing.

The complex, which is spread over 250+ acres and an investment of around 1,500Cr is slated to have state-of-the-art technology across small and medium calibre ammunition, along with short-range air defence missiles.

There are plans to hire around 1,500 people, who will use the best-in-class technologies to manufacture high-quality ammunition for domestic and export markets.

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gas pipeline in Egypt

Gas Pipeline to boost gas exports to Egypt.

Gas pipeline
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

Israel plans to build $200m pipeline to boost gas exports to Egypt. The project is expected to boost Israel’s gas exports capacity by up to five billion cubic metres per year to Egypt.

Israel is reportedly looking to construct a new natural gas pipeline to Egypt, with an estimated investment of $200m, in the wake of surging demand for supplies globally.

The proposed project is expected to boost Israel’s natural gas exports capacity by three to five billion cubic metres per year to Egypt. Israel and Egypt are holding talks on possible cooperation in the supply of natural gas. One of the options being studied, following a request by Egypt for further natural gas supplies, is an onshore gas pipeline.

Planned to be commissioned within 24 months, the new onshore pipeline will connect the natural gas grids of the two countries through the north of the Sinai Peninsula.

Currently, approvals are being sought from local authorities for the pipeline route. The project will be owned by Israel Natural Gas Lines. The project is also expected to help in boosting LNG export from Egypt to Europe and Asia.

Israel is currently supplying five billion cubic metres per year of natural gas to Egypt from its Tamar and Leviathan offshore gas fields, via a subsea pipeline as part of a 15-year supply contract between the countries.

Israel and Egypt are planning to construct a second subsea pipeline, which will supply LNG plants of Idku and Damietta in Egypt. The fuel would be further re-exported to Europe and Asia.

By 2028, Israel is expected to boost its export capacity to eight billion cubic metres per year following the expansion of the Leviathan field and improvement of existing infrastructure.

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Data Traceability From Cradle To Cradle By Blockchains

Product Data Traceability From Cradle To Cradle By Blockchains Interoperability And Sustainability Service Marketplace.

Blockchains
(Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

In EU a garment is worn an average of 3 times in its life, with 400 Bln lost a year discarding clothes which can still be worn and 92 Mln tons of waste, 87% of clothes ending up in landfills. But due to growing awareness on ethical and environmental impacts, 66% of consumers are ready to pay more for sustainable products.

TRICK will provide a complete, SME affordable and standardised platform to support the adoption of sustainable and circular approaches: it will enable enterprises to collect product data and to access to the necessary services on a dedicated marketplace, open to third party solutions.

TRICK demo will be run in 2 highly complex and polluting domains: textile-clothing as main pilot and perishable food for replication.

EC estimates that up to 10% of the 88 million tons of food waste generated annually in the EU are linked to date marking, with associated costs estimated at 143 billion. Secured traceability will rely on the data needed for the preferential certification of origin (PCO), used for duty calculation. It will be certified by Customs as member of the consortium, representing anti fraud public forces.

The data extracted by the fiscal documents for the PCO will be integrated with the bill of materials, saved in the Blockchains (BC) per each lot of production to grant traceability continuity, and with the additional ones to enable the six services provided by TRICK: traceability, circular assessment, PEF, health and social assessment, A.I. for anti counterfeting.

BC will secure information through the whole process, ending to consumers for informed purchasing. Data confidentiality and privacy will be granted by the exploitation of Blockchains smart contracts while the adoption of different technologies will be solved by the development of Blockchain interoperability connectors between the two BC providers. End users will cover the whole TC value chain, from raw materials to recycling.

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100 fast EV Charging Stations In India

EV Charging Stations in India.

Scope : To Set up 100 fast EV charging corridors having 2,000 stations in India.

Public sector oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum will invest around Rs 200 crore this fiscal to set up 100 fast electric vehicles charging corridors having 2,000 stations along the busiest 100 national highways.

The second corridor will come up on the Kochi-Salem section of the National Highway 47 within the next two months.

In case a charging unit does not need a booster transformer, such a unit which will be a full-fledged centre offering rest rooms, refreshments/food court, among other amenities can be ready at a cost varying from Rs 7-12 lakh, and if the unit needs a transformer then the cost will go up to Rs 25 lakh.

Given this cost variance, They have budgeted for around Rs 200 crore investment this fiscal as they plan to set up as many as 2,000 fast charging stations across 100 corridors by March 2023.

The third corridor will most probably be the Mumbai-Bengaluru National Highway 4, and will have multiple units as the highway has amongst the highest traffic.

The national oil refiner and marketer, which is the second largest player with close to 30 per cent retail market in petrol and diesel, hopes that the EV ecosystem will grow faster than forecast earlier, and the company wants to play a big role in setting up the basic infrastructure for this ambitious drive.

View details – https://www.globaltenders.com/tender-detail?gt_id=472132915-100-fast-ev-charging-corridors-having-2000-stations-in-india

EV Charging Stations
EV Charging Stations ((Disclaimer – The image for illustration purpose only. It does not reflect the actual project)

Primary Student Learning in Tanzania

Boost Primary Student Learning in Tanzania

Total Cost: Us$ 200.00 million

The Governments current Education Sector Development Plan sets out priority areas for the education sector over the 2016/17-2020/21 period, covering all activities, from pre-primary to higher education, including TVET.

The BOOST Program will finance three out of the six priority programs:

(i)Ensuring access, participation and equity-achieving universal participation in pre-primary education, completion of basic education, improved equity in access and providing learning opportunities for vulnerable groups are the core focus areas;

(ii)Improving quality education and learning-this includes a focus on developing teacher competencies and skills, strengthening learning assessments, expanding and improving use of ICT in teaching and learning, and bettering alignment of school leadership and management for improved performance and accountability vis–vis student outcomes; and

(iii)Strengthening system structure, governance and management-this includes strengthening the institutional arrangements, harmonizing regulations and guidelines and promoting better system-wide coordination, collaboration and accountability.

It also includes improving financing equity and sustainability. Description of Program Results Areas:

Improving School Learning Environment BOOST will provide results-based financing to incentivize the relevant government agencies to either facilitate through policies and financing or directly providing for schools meeting minimum requirements to function, including

i) classrooms and associated facilities,

ii) curriculum aligned and developmentally appropriate teaching and learning materials, and

iii) implementation of a Safe School Program adapted for pre-primary and primary education.

Interventions will be targeted to specific LGAs for this component. Final criteria will be determined in the next phase.

(i) Classroom and associated facilities will help reduce the classroom congestion and improve the health and safety of children especially in the wake of COVID-19. Construction will target the disadvantaged LGAs and schools that have below average service delivery indicators in pupil classroom ratio and pupil latrine ratios especially at pre-primary level.

Construction of classrooms will follow the School Construction Strategy developed in the current EPforR and further incorporate school health and safety standards developed by the Ministry of Health for strengthening responses towards pandemic including COVID-19.

(ii) Curriculum-aligned and age-appropriate teaching and learning materials will be developed and provided including replenishment of textbooks, science kits, learning packages for pre-primary classes that include picture books, manipulatives and other learning aids that are development.

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Primary Education Learning
Primary Education