Continental Freight Company (CFC), the freight forwarding and shipping arm of Almajdouie Group, scored major hits in recent months including winning a contract from a Sabic affiliate.

CFC also won a deal to transport wagons for the North-South Railway.

Specialising in project cargo clearance and duty exemptions, Continental Freight offers customs clearance at all seaports, airports and Saudi border posts. It is also engaged in shipping and transporting air consignments and sea cargo, both bulk and container, imported from all over the world into Saudi Arabia and exported from Saudi Arabia to any destination on the map.

Sabic, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of chemicals, fertilisers and plastics and an important producer of metals, nominated Continental Freight to handle all its affiliate’s customs clearance processing as well as transportation from all seaports, airports and border posts of Saudi Arabia.

A pipe being transported for Kamigumi

This is not the first time Continental Freight has received a Sabic contract as it has had a long relationship with  the petrochemicals giant having worked with it on a number of projects including Petrokemya, Saudi Kayan, Sharq, Ibn Zahr, Kemya, Gas and Safco.

Annually, Continental Freight will handle for Sabic as many as 1,500 to 1,800 air consignments and another 12,000 to 15,000 teu of containers.

Kamigumi job
The company also bagged a contract from Japanese firm Kamigumi. Continental Freight is commissioned to handle a Kamigumi project involving pipes coming from Turkey, Japan and Thailand. Coating of the pipes is done in Saudi Arabia and the coated pipes are then delivered to the UAE for placement in an Al Ain City Water project.

In the first phase, Continental Freight expects to handle 1,077 pipe movements with each pipe weighing 8-9 tonnes and having a length of 12 m.

The company is happy over its involvement with Kamigumi saying it is a prestigious player with business extending to six major divisions that offer total distribution services responsive to the needs of the times.

A wagon is being prepared for loading on to a trailer

These divisions handle mega projects not just in Japan but also worldwide, a Continental Freight spokesman said.

Present at the contract signing ceremony with Kamigumi were S I Mustafa, Almajdouie vice president, and Kamigumi general manager Mai Takura along with Continental Freight Company officials Zahoor Ahmed (general manager) and Farhan Faiyaz (regional manager). 

Moving wagons
Under a contract it won from National Shipping Corporation of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA), Continental Freight handled 125 wagons in the first phase, transporting them from Dammam port to the project site of Saudi Arabian Railways in Hezm Al Jalamid.

These wagons will be hauled by locomotives on the North-South Railway which will run from Al Haditha on the border with Jordan to a new terminus near King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Branches will connect Maaden’s phosphate mines at Al Jalamid and bauxite deposits at Al Zabirah with processing plants at Ras Al Zour on the Gulf coast.

The 125 make up the first consignment of a total of 668 wagons.