A typical subsea cable repair equals several days for the ship to reach fault position. It’s 3-5 days once the ship is on site and even longer if bad weather is involved. And this doesn’t include projects that involve mobilization, delays and operational difficulties.
One splice alone can be 12-24 hours to repair and requires the ship to remain stationary with the cable suspended in water. All the while, cables and equipment are vulnerable to damage by other vessels and fishing gear. It’s a delicate feat that requires speed, precise navigation and station keeping in some of the most extreme ocean environments.
Cable handling requires specialized equipment for measuring, deployment and tension. The last thing anyone needs during this process is to be dealing with difficult equipment. Subsea cable hardware should provide secure, fast assembly and have the ability to be installed on cables with unlimited attachment possibilities.
If your subsea cable hardware is not working to increase performance, your operational costs are definitely on the rise.
Watch how your cable hardware should work for you:
Discover our innovative, tool-free hardware with common-sense solutions to anticipate your needs.
You may not have noticed, but offshore wind is taking our world by storm.
Since offshore wind turbines are transported by ships and barges, they easily reduce logistical challenges that land-based turbines encounter, such as narrow roadways or tunnels. This allows offshore wind developers to build larger turbines capable of producing more electricity.
But what’s really exciting is that offshore wind turbines can float. Several U.S. companies are developing innovative floating offshore wind platforms for use in deep waters. These floating platforms are placed in water depths where bottom-mounted towers are not feasible. Their structures are tethered to the seabed with cables.
And where there are cables, there is cable hardware.
We’ve been creating subsea cable hardware for years. Today our products, which offer protection against cable bending and abrasion, are being adapted for the renewable energy field.
This need for subsea cable hardware will be on the rise right along with the demand of
clean, renewable energy to fulfill the electrical needs of cities along U.S. coastlines. And being located near the east coast, where many of the first offshore wind farms will be developed, means we are a close resource for the industry.
Read more about our thoughts on wind energy.
Here are all top 10 things you didn’t know about offshore wind energy.
Subsea umbilical cables are subject to corrosion, hydrostatic pressure, high internal pressures and near-freezing temperatures. Stresses from movement in a riser, a floating rig, and the ocean currents themselves are common. Because of these conditions, testing your ocean cable hardware is necessary and should be mandatory. Understanding failure mechanisms is the best way to anticipate problems before they occur.
Everyone and everything, from oil and gas operators to offshore personnel and the environment, benefits from avoiding subsea equipment failures. That’s why the industry spends huge sums every year on inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) programs. Taking a more intelligent approach to IMR planning can also deliver lower risks and lower costs.
Rather than sticking to rigid service and inspection intervals, operators can use equipment condition, process and other field data, along with historic performance information on shared industry databases, to predict deterioration and intervene only when necessary. This optimized way of managing IMR is part of today’s holistic, risk-based approach to integrity management for subsea and many other types of assets, on and offshore.
Read more from growthmarkets-oil.com and how effective risk assessment can be the difference between triumph and disaster.
In September 1857, during a hurricane 160 miles off the coast of North Carolina, a copper-sheathed paddlewheel ship, the SS Central America, sank in the Atlantic Ocean. It was carrying so much gold on-board that her sinking contributed to the first global financial crisis.
Since April 2014, salvage experts have been retrieving its high-value cargo using the latest ROV and vessel technology.
There’s a lot of work that goes into salvaging shipwrecks. Large crews of scientists, archaeologists and technicians man a mothership that must maintain position in a footprint less than 50cm in extreme water conditions.
Far below the surface, where the pressure is enormous, they employ a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) highly customized for deep-sea shipwreck exploration.
ROVs are controlled from the ship via an umbilical cable. This massive cable contains small fibre-optic cables that carry control instructions to the ROV’s lights, manipulator arms and imagery from the HD cameras.
While the treasures to be uncovered are worth hundreds of millions, the cost to recover these riches is plenty high, too. It’s important that recovery teams use subsea cable equipment that offers security of their highly valuable ROV, bending strain relief and protection against equipment damage in extreme underwater environments.
Using high quality products on dives like this can ultimately make the difference between expensive equipment failure and a success filled with riches.
Read more about the SS Central America here.
Although we are located in the States, we assist companies world-wide with marine cable hardware, deployment, and management. Therefore, we’ve had a front row seat watching Europe position itself as a leader and pioneer in addressing climate change, creating jobs in the offshore wind sector, and reducing fossil fuel imports.
And while offshore wind is years behind onshore wind, the industry is displaying one of the fastest growth rates in the industry. The pace of growth, however, needs to be matched by an equal pace in reducing costs. Success will depend not only on how much it can reduce costs, but also how fast it can reduce costs.
As the U.S. starts installing the foundations for their first offshore wind farm, they will have these same issues to contend with as well as the struggling opposition found along our coast.
Read more about offshore wind here.
Read more about North America’s first offshore wind farm:
Rhode Island’s Deepwater Wind will start installing the foundations for North America’s first offshore wind farm on Monday, a milestone the company says could pave the way for an industry long established in Europe but that is still struggling with opposition in the United States.
As our underwater cable products and services continue to serve customers worldwide, we are excited to read about how our global community is working together to share best practices and collaborate on operational solutions within the Welsh marine energy sector.
Tapping companies from around the world with expertise in both the marine and energy industries will certainly make Wales a world-leader in the marine energy market and create hundreds of jobs in areas like manufacturing, offshore operations and new project development.
The profile of Wales as a potential location for marine energy projects has increased dramatically over the past 12 months, demonstrated clearly by the growing number of developers from across the globe who are showing an active interest in developing projects in Welsh waters.
Attracted initially by Wales’ excellent wave and tidal stream resource, the announcement of two marine energy Demonstration Zones and the allocation of €100.4 million of EU Structural Funds prioritized by the Welsh Government for marine energy have served to cement Wales in the minds of developers as one of the preferred locations for marine energy development on a worldwide scale.
Read more about our thoughts on renewable energy
Read more about the Welsh Marine Energy Sector.
Our location near the Great Lakes has many advantages. One of them is being a close resource for our east coast clients. The other is getting the chance to witness some fabulous things happening in our territory.
LEEDCo has kicked off geotechnical studies in connection with its proposed 18MW Icebreaker offshore wind demonstration project in the U.S. Great Lakes.
The company is investigating lakefloor soils including sampling at six different turbine locations, building on geotechnical work carried out in 2013.
Read about another Great Lakes project here.
Read more about LEEDCo’s project here.
There is no shortage of new technologies and ideas in the wave and tidal energy business. New floating tidal platforms in the Netherlands are already feeding electricity to the Dutch grid almost upon deployment. The results are amazing and not yet seen in the tidal industry until now,
Their recipe for success is one we share – minimize the impact of equipment costs and grow with minimized risk. That’s exactly how we work customers to find a solution within budget and create top-quality cable hardware maintaining cable integrity in extreme underwater environments.
In a recent interview with Tidal Energy Today, Allard van Hoeken, Head of New Energy at Bluewater Energy Services, echoed our beliefs.
“Learn with low costs, grow with minimized risk, and keep offshore access easy in the early phase.” This recipe for success in tidal energy industry was shared with [Tidal Energy Today] by the Head of New Energy at Bluewater Energy Services, Mr. Allard van Hoeken.
Read the interview with Allard van Hoeken here.
