Hafeet Rail passes 40 percent and the Oman–UAE railway agreement is ratified

Hafeet Rail, the joint venture of Etihad Rail, Oman Rail and Mubadala Investment Company, announced on 21 April 2026 that construction of the 238 kilometre Oman–UAE railway had reached 40 percent across civil works and major structures. Work is under way in Al Ain, Al Buraimi, Sohar and Wadi Al Jizzi. The company reported more than 27 million cubic metres of earthworks, over 100,000 cubic metres of concrete, 80 structures in construction, 900 concrete piles and 130 box culverts, with tunnel excavation described as a key milestone and ten million safe man-hours recorded.

On 21 June 2026 Oman and the UAE signed a bilateral railway agreement, and Royal Decree 75/2026 ratifying it took effect on 3 September. Reporting puts the project cost at USD 2.5 billion, with USD 1.5 billion of project financing secured, and each freight train able to carry more than 15,000 tonnes or roughly 270 standard containers.

A freight line from Sohar Port into the UAE network changes what industrial land in Sohar, Wadi Al Jizzi and Al Buraimi is worth and what gets built on it. Warehousing, container handling, light manufacturing and the housing and services that follow a logistics corridor all become viable earlier than they otherwise would.

For developers that means feasibility studies on plots near the alignment and the freight terminals are worth re-running now, with the railway as a fixed assumption rather than a maybe. For contractors it means the Sohar Industrial Estate and the free zone will keep generating industrial building packages well after the rail civils finish.

Large linear projects absorb aggregates, cement, steel and skilled labour in a region. Anyone building in North Batinah or Al Buraimi in 2026 and 2027 should expect competition for those resources and price the risk into preliminaries and programme rather than discovering it on site.