Submarine Cable Systems News

Offshore installation contractor DEME Offshore has said it has secured a +$1.1 billion Balance of Plant (BoP) contract for the construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project in a consortium with Prysmian. The contract, with a total value amounting to +$1.9 Billion, has been awarded by Dominion Energy Virginia, a subsidiary of Dominion Energy Inc., to a consortium, made up of DEME Group and Prysmian.According to DEME Offshore, the agreement is the largest offshore wind installation contract ever awarded in the U.S.

The market for marine services in support of the installation and maintenance of undersea telecommunications cables has matured over a period of more than 100 years to reach its present state of development. The largest providers of marine services (companies such as the Global Marine Group, SubCom, Alcatel Submarine Networks and Orange Marine) take different approaches to operations, but provide a mature and assured set of services that play a critical role in the industry. Marine services support the suppliers of undersea cable systems (delivering 50…

The global player in the cable and optical fiber industry Nexans S.A. was awarded a significant Purchase Order to supply 180 km of 230 kV cables for the offshore Marjan increment development mega-project on the eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf.Discovered in 1967, the Marjan field is one of the oldest and biggest offshore oil and gas fields in the Arabian Gulf. It is currently undergoing expansion under the Marjan Increment Program announced in 2017.The French expert in cables and cabling systems said that it will supply two lengths of 90 km of 230kV HVAC three-core submarine power cables with an internal fiber optical element.Nexans is one of the very few suppliers in the world capable to manufacture…

In the last few months, the submarine cable industry’s #1 cable installation software, MakaiLay, has been commissioned on four cable laying vessels around the world. KT Submarine (KTS, Korea) recently completed a challenging installation with one of their cable laying vessels, Segero. They also commissioned the software on their other vessel, the Responder, and are currently using it to manage a cable installation in the Pacific. “To provide more accurate cable installation services to our client, we started using MakaiLay in our most recent cable lays, and we are impressed with its capabilities,” said Mr. Moon, Engineer-In-Charge, KT Submarine.

ABB has won an order worth more than $250 million from the Danish energy company DONG Energy to deliver a 220-kilovolt (kV) high-voltage cable system that will connect the Hornsea Project One Offshore Wind Farm in the North Sea to the UK mainland grid. This is the third project that ABB will execute for DONG Energy, following the Burbo Bank extension and Walney extension links in the Irish Sea. Hornsea Project One will be the world’s largest capacity offshore wind farm, capable of generating 1.2 gigawatts of renewable energy and bringing clean electricity to well over one million UK households. ABB will supply alternating current (AC) submarine cable systems for the Eastern and Western circuit…

C&W Networks, part of Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), the largest telecommunications service provider across the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and United States with more than 48,000 miles of subsea fiber-optic network has selected Xtera Communications, Inc., a leading provider of high-capacity, cost-effective optical transport solutions, for upgrading its submarine cable systems in the western Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean Sea to 100G. By introducing Xtera’s 100G coherent solution, C&W Networks continues to offer robust services across 42 countries with superior reliability and scalability of international wholesale capacity.

Google and five other large companies team up to build a cable under the Pacific Ocean that will deliver incredibly fast internet speeds informs system supplier NEC Corporation. A consortium of six global companies have signed commercial agreements to build and operate a new Trans-Pacific cable system to be called “FASTER” which will connect the United States to two landing locations in Japan. The total amount of investment for the FASTER system is estimated to be approximately USD $300 million. In order to address the intense traffic demands for broadband, mobile, applications, content and enterprise data exchange on the Trans-Pacific route…

Siem Offshore contracts Remontowa Shipbuilding S.A. of Poland to construct a dynamically positioned Cable Lay Vessel (CLV). The associated gross project cost for the first vessel, scheduled for April 2015 and ready for operation, is approx. USD 85 million. The CLV has been designed in close cooperation with VARD Design and will have an overall length of 95.3 meters, a breadth of 21.5 meters, a cable payload of 4,250 tons and an accommodation for 60 persons. The CLV will be equipped with a state-of-the-art diesel-electric propulsion system consisting of four main generators providing power to two azimuth propulsion thrusters, two tunnel thrusters and one retractable thruster…

Prysmian Group, a leader in the energy and telecom cables and systems industry, is participating in the creation of Norstec, an association uniting the main players in the energy industry at the global level with the aim of supporting the production of renewable energy using offshore wind farms in the Northern Seas. Norstec, supported by British Prime Minister David Cameron, brings together more than 40 entities operating in the energy transmission infrastructure and technology industry, including world-leading manufacturers - such as Alstom, Areva, E.On, National Grid, Siemens, Vattenfall and Vestas —, developers, researchers and industry bodies…

ZAO “Polarnet Project” of Russia (www.polarnetproject.ru) has announced a tender for the supply of  the Russian Optical Trans Arctic Submarine Cable System (ROTACS), which will connect Europe and Asia via the shortest possible geographical route across the Arctic, opening a new chapter in the history of global submarine telecommunications. Construction of ROTACS is expected to commence in 2H 2012. ROTACS will provide the best-in-class latency route between the UK and Japan/China, and will be the  first system to be built along the unique trans-Arctic geographic route. Furthermore, the design of  the system will use the latest developments in optical transmission technology…