TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Brunei's infrastructure company Brunergy Utama Sdn Bdh announced that it will work on the Trans Borneo Railway project. It will be the island's first high-speed rail network connecting Kalimantan, Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei.

The company said on its website that the Trans Borneo Railway project would be developed in two phases, covering a distance of 1,620 kilometers. The average distance between stations would be 150 kilometers, and the train's speed would be between 300 and 350 kilometers per hour, with an estimated average travel time of just 30 minutes between stations.

Malay Mail reported that according to the website, the first phase will connect cities from the west coast to the east coast, starting in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, and ending in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The route will include Kuching, Sambas Singkawang, Mempawah and Pontianak, among others.

In the second phase, the railway will cover North and East Kalimantan, with the main route connecting to Samarinda and the new capital of Indonesia, Nusantara, passing through Bawan, Tanjung Selor, Bontang, Samarinda and Balikpapan, among others.

Brunergy Utama Sdn Bhd is a wholly owned Brunei company focused on key infrastructure projects to drive future growth in Borneo. Established in October 2013, the company was previously known as Mumin Energy (B) Sdn Bhd, which operated primarily in the oil and gas sector.

Sarawak Not Informed Yet

Meanwhile, the Sarawak government said it had not been officially informed of a Brunei-based company's proposal to build a high-speed rail network that would pass through several destinations in the state. Sarawak Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg said he had only read about the Trans-Borneo Railway proposal in recent media reports and that the state government had not yet been approached by the project's proponent.

"Maybe it's a private sector proposal that doesn't involve the government. If we were to build the Kalimantan-Borneo railway, there would have to be an agreement between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei," he said.

Abang Johari said the Economic Planning Unit was still in the process of studying the feasibility of a rail network linking Sarawak with the other regions of Borneo.

“They will engage in government-to-government discussions with Indonesia and Brunei to find a consensus in developing the Trans-Borneo railway,” he told the Malaysian media, as reported by Free Malaysia Today.

Meanwhile, Brunei's Minister of Transport and Information Communication, Shamhary Mustapha, said there had been no official government-to-government discussion on the proposal.

"Although there has been no official discussion on the matter at the government level, there is an ASEAN railway sub-working group that discusses matters of railway connectivity within ASEAN, so this matter may be raised in the future," he said.

MALAY MAIL | FREE MALAYSIA TODAY

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