"There will be two train tracks; first is the Northern line of 305 kilometers and the second is the Southern line of 270 kilometers," CEO of PT Kereta Api Borneo, Sergey Kuznetsov, stated.
Balikpapan, E Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - Russian Railways and its subsidiary company in Indonesia, PT Kereta Api Borneo, have planned to develop a 575-kilometers train track that would cross four sub-districts in the area, with a total investment of US$2 million.

"There will be two train tracks; first is the Northern line of 305 kilometers and the second is the Southern line of 270 kilometers," CEO of PT Kereta Api Borneo, Sergey Kuznetsov, stated in Balikpapan on Monday.

The Northern line will connect the Tabang area in Kutai Kartanegara, with Maloy in the coast of East Kutai, while the Southern line will start from Melak in West Kutai and end in Buluminung in the Penajam Paser Utara area.

The construction itself is expected to be completed by 2022.

"At the moment, we have completed a number of studies including geophysics and hydrology. We have also tested 2 thousand different soil samples along the track locations," Head of the companys Business and Development Vladimir Volkov noted.

Both tracks will be used for the transportation of goods, including natural resources such as Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and coal.

Five years after transportation of goods, the railway would start carrying passengers as well.

Governor of East Kalimantan Awang Faroek Ishak explained that there should be a complex process to gain permit and a more comprehensive cooperation with PT Kereta Api Indonesia for the carriage to be able to transport passengers.

The governor further stated that at the end of the Northern line in Maloy of the East Kutai coast, a harbor will be built.

"There will be a harbor, coal stockpile, and moving facilities such as rolling belts and cranes, both in Maloy and Buluminung. They will have the capacity of 5 million tons per year," he elaborated.

Furthermore, it has been previously reported that along the sides of both planned tracks, there will be mines owned by large mining corporations.

For example, there is a mine owned by PT Gunung Bayan Pratama, a corporation owned by a Malaysian businessman Dato Low Tuck Kwong, along the Southern line.

On the Northern line track location, there are mines that are being managed by PT Kiradin and Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC), which manages the largest open pit coal mining in the world.

The track will also pass by a number of palm oil plantations that are managed by the company.

"We are allowing PT Kereta Api Borneo to speak Business-to-Business with the corporations mentioned. As a representative of the government, we will provide as much facility as we can," Awang explained.

Russian investors are no strangers to Indonesias region of East Kalimantan. In the era of the countrys first president Soekarno, Russians had taken up a number of projects.

One of the well-known ones until today include the Balikpapan-Samarinda road project, which is 110 kilometers long.

A lot of expatriates and senior citizens still refer to the road as the Russian road, while today, people refer to it as the Soekarno-Hatta road. (*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017