Cables News

Two undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, including one linking Finland and Germany, were severed, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.The episode recalled other incidents in the same waterway that authorities have probed as potentially malicious including damage to a gas pipeline and undersea cables last year and the 2022 explosions of the Nord Sea gas pipelines.The 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock stopped working around 0200 GMT on Monday…

Estonia's state prosecutor said China has not responded to a six-month-old request for help with an investigation into a Chinese ship which Estonia suspects cut two of its subsea telecoms cables.The two cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden were damaged on Oct 7-8, and an Estonia-Finland gas pipeline was broken the same night, hurting energy security and raising alarm bells in the wider region.Both Estonia, which is investigating the cables damage, and Finland, which is looking into the Balticconnector gas pipeline…

VARD shipyard in Romania launched the hull of the new Van Oord cable layer Calypso earlier this week.Vard Tulcea in Romania is making final preparations before the hull will be towed to Vard Brattvaag. At Vard Brattvaag, the shipbuilder will continue outfitting the vessel, topside equipment installation, commissioning and trials in collaboration with Van Oord and sub-contractors before handing it over to the owner, Dutch offshore installation specialist Van Oord.The vessel will…

Italy's Prysmian plans to invest around 200 million euros ($226 million) to build a plant in the U.S. to produce submarine power transmission cables, CEO Valerio Battista said to the media in remarks confirmed by a company spokesman.The plant, to be built in Brayton Point, Mass., is part of two contracts worth a total of almost $900 million that the world's largest cable maker has won in the Unites States on two offshore wind farm projects.Battista said the company would officially…

France-based offshore cable manufacturer and installation contractor Nexans announced Tuesday it has officially opened its transformed high voltage subsea cable plant in Charleston, S.C.From the Charleston facility Nexans will deliver subsea cables up to 525kV HVDC and 400kV HVAC, covering the full range of needed products for export cables for offshore wind and subsea interconnectors. The first subsea high voltage export cable will be delivered to an offshore windfarm in the U.K.

Global Offshore, part of Global Marine Group, has won a contract for the installation and burial of 27 array cables at Parkwind’s Arcadis Ost 1 offshore wind farm in the German Sector of the Baltic SeaGlobal Offshore will be responsible for the project management and marine engineering; cable protection systems supply and installation, pre and post lay surveys, cable loading and laying, cable burial, and post-burial survey.OceanIQ, Global Offshore’s sister company, will provide route engineering services for the project.

Engineering firm Cavotec has won an order for the delivery of motorized cable reel systems for integration onto advanced rail-mounted gantry cranes at the Port of TokyoCavotec will supply motorized cable reel systems for eight automated rail-mounted gantry cranes at the Wan Hai Tokyo Oi5 terminal, a major global container handling hub. The cable reels will ensure the cranes meet demanding performance requirements due to surging container volumes. Working with Chin Pan engineering group, Cavotec is scheduled to complete the delivery of the systems in early 2023.

Seaway 7, the renewables business unit of Subsea 7, is expanding its renewables fleet with a second cable lay vessel.The company, which has access to Subsea 7's pool of vessels, said Wednesday that the Seven Phoenix vessel would be converted to become "a dedicated inner array grid and export cable installation and trenching support vessel."Seaway 7 said the move would improve and grow its position in the submarine cables installation market."The Seven Phoenix was originally constructed as a dedicated trans-oceanic submarine fiber optic cable lay vessel.