Italy’s Prysmian Group reports that it has been awarded a major grid connection project, DolWin5, worth some €140 million, from Dutch-German grid operator TenneT.
A press release said that the TenneT project will connect multiple offshore wind farms to the German grid. It calls for “the supply, installation and commissioning of a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) 320 kV XLPE-insulated submarine and land power cable connection, with a transmission capacity of 900 MW, as well as the associated fibre optic cable system, comprising a land route of 30 km and a subsea route of 100 km.” The turnkey connections will link the offshore converter platform DolWin epsilon, located some 100 km offshore in the German North Sea, to the mainland Emden/Ost converter station, and help transmit the generated renewable energy into the German grid.
The cables will be manufactured at Prysmian Group’s plants in Pikkala, Finland, submarine, and Gron, France, land, the release said. Offshore installation activities will be performed by two Prysmian cable-laying vessels: the Cable Enterprise, for deep water installation, and the Ulisse, for shallow water activities. Completion of the project is scheduled for the middle of 2024.
“The Dolwin5 project continues our valued long relationship with the major TSO TenneT and demonstrates our ability to provide tailor-made submarine cable solutions for challenging projects, providing the offshore infrastructure needed to support the growth of clean energy in Northern Europe,” said Hakan Ozmen, EVP Projects, Prysmian Group.
The release said that the project comes “at a very important time for Prysmian,” which recently won a €200 million U.S. offshore project from Vineyard Wind, LLC.
Industry News
Liberty Steel, part of the global GFG Alliance, further expanded its footprint in the U.S. steel downstream products market with the acquisition of Johnstown Wire Technologies (JWT) in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
A press release notes that JWT is the largest producer of value-added carbon and alloy wire in North America, and that the deal “gives Liberty valuable capacity to manufacture a range of high-value carbon and alloy wire products for multiple end markets including the infrastructure, automotive, utility and consumer sectors.”
The Johnstown plant, described as an advanced manufacturing facility, has some 250 employees, the release said. They will complement Liberty’s melting and rolling operations at Georgetown, South Carolina, and Peoria, Illinois. Combined with its scrap processing plant in Tampa, Florida, the acquisition “will firmly embed the business along the full value chain in the U.S. steel market.”
Liberty Steel entered the U.S. market in 2017 by acquiring ArcelorMittal’s Georgetown Steel mill and followed up with the purchase of Keystone Consolidated Industries, including its flagship Peoria mill, in 2018.
“Today’s announcement marks another major step by Liberty towards its target of quickly becoming a market leader in the American wire rod sector,” the release said. It noted that the 638,000-sq-foot Johnstown site has been a high-profile steel manufacturing facility for more than a century, and that it is a top-three U.S. producer of the types of steel that will be needed to modernize America’s aging infrastructure: CHQ, electro-galvanized, aluminized and spring wire.
JWT currently holds the number one market position in the electro-galvanized and aluminized sectors, the release said. “Liberty Steel intends to drive growth at JWT as the U.S. updates its infrastructure and electricity networks, thereby increasing demand for steel products such as support cables and guard rails for bridges and for electrical power lines.”
With more than half of JWT’s output sold into the transportation market, Liberty is also aiming to capitalize on continued growth in U.S. vehicle production, the release said. It is the third largest producer in the U.S. of CHQ wire, which is used in automotive products such as engine block bolts and brake pad rivets. The acquisition will also add substantially to Liberty’s capability to meet the “Made in America” specifications required for public infrastructure and utility contracts.
“This is another very significant step towards our ambitious U.S. goals,” said GFC Chief Investment Officer Grant Quasha. “JWT is a profitable business with a skilled workforce and tremendous pedigree in the industry, so we look forward to welcoming it into the GFG USA family and helping it build an even stronger future.”
GFG Group Executive Chairman Sanjeev Gupta said that he was thrilled with the deal. “The addition of high-quality specialized facilities at Johnstown further strengthens our existing facilities at Georgetown and Peoria.”
“We are excited to be joining the GFG family of global businesses and see this as a tremendous opportunity to further our position as a leading manufacturer of steel wire in North America,” said Johnstown Wire Technologies President and CEO Jack Miller.
MAC ITS LLC, founded in 1976 as Manufactured Assemblies Corporation (MAC), specializing in manufacturing cable assemblies and wire harnesses, plans to expand its headquarters location in Dayton, Ohio.
Per a report in the Dayton Business Journal, the company is proposing an expansion that would create 79 new jobs. The company, which now also makes kiosks for OEMs, was given a tax incentive for the plan worth about $200,000.
The proposed expansion involves consolidating out-of-state operations into Ohio, which is competing with Georgia and Indiana for the project. Officials says state support will help ensure the project moves forward in Vandalia. MAC also has a location in Buford, Georgia.
Manufactured Assemblies Corp. has grown its presence in the Dayton region. In 2014, the company announced a $1 million project to expand its Vandalia headquarters and add 35 new jobs. The company had 90 employees at the time.
The business has also evolved from its original core products. "In addition to making custom cable assemblies and wire harnesses, MAC has expanded its abilities into a wide range of products including but not limited to kiosks, box builds, panel boards, digital signs and other custom assemblies. MAC has established a reputation as an industry leader in contract manufacturing. We continue to expand and adapt with current technologies, providing outsourced solutions to large and small OEMs, as well as superior service and products with forward-thinking solutions to support every customer need."
Two leading international lubricant manufacturers, Metalube and H.L. Blachford Ltd., announced at Interwire 2019 that they have entered into a North American partnership.
The two companies, which exhibited together, will initially focus on selling Metalube’s high quality, nonferrous copper and aluminum wire drawing lubricants across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
“This is a very exciting time for us,” said H.L. Blachford President Mike Cundari. “We have been working to develop our relationship with Metalube for some years now, and we are delighted with the exceptional quality of the nonferrous lubricants they produce. We look forward to a long and fruitful joint venture.”
H.L. Blachford is a privately owned company, founded in 1921, with production facilities in Canada, the U.S. and England. Its ferrous and nonferrous wire drawing products are sold under the trade name Chemdraw®.
“This partnership is also excellent news for Metalube,” said Metalube Commercial Director Douglas Hunt. “Blachford has a highly established presence in North America, and like us, is a privately owned family business with a similar ethos. They have superb relationships with all of the key nonferrous wire drawing producers in the region and we are highly confident that our products will be very well received here.”
Metalube is part of the Bishopdale Group, a private holding company for a group of industrial lubricants brands that include Metalube, Molyslip and UOP. It exports 95% of its production to over 90 countries worldwide and has offices in Manchester, Dubai, Mumbai, São Paulo and Shanghai. From its headquarters in Irlam, Manchester, the company has a fully integrated lubricant manufacturing facility, including new state-of-the-art laboratories.
Following failed attempts to get a £30 million government loan, British Steel was placed into “compulsory liquidation” on May 22, putting some 4,200 jobs there and 20,000 related positions at risk. Despite the official designation, the company notes at its website that it “continues to trade as normal.”
Per multiple news reports, British Steel had sought further loans from the British government to remain afloat, but did not get it. Instead, the business—which was bought in 2016 for one pound by investment firm Greybull Capital—was placed in liquidation. A government statement said there was no other option, as it “would be unlawful to provide a guarantee or loan to British Steel on the terms of any proposals that the company or any other party has made,” said Business Secretary Greg Clark.
At its website, British Steel, which has a product range that includes wire rod, notes that work continues under the oversight of the Official Receiver “whilst a sales process is undertaken to find a new owner for our business.” Further, the company’s subsidiaries including British Steel France Rail SAS, FN Steel BV, Redcar Bulk Terminal, The Steel Company of Ireland Limited, TSP Projects Limited and TSP Engineering Limited “are not in insolvency and are continuing to trade as normal.”
Reports said that making steel profitably is particularly difficult in Britain, where steelmakers pay some of the highest green taxes and energy costs in the world and are saddled with high labor costs and business rates. However, a dominant matter remains the continuing uncertainty surrounding Britain’s planned departure from the EU. “The whole manufacturing sector is crying out for certainty over Brexit, unable to plan the trading relationship it will have with its biggest market. We can only state again the need to avoid a no-deal scenario at all costs,” said a statement from UK Steel.
Jonathan Owens, supply chain and logistics expert at the University of Salford Business School, said that British Steel had been struggling in a very competitive market and that a new government loan may only have delayed the inevitable failure of the company.
In December 2018, the European Commission suspended the access of British Steel to an EU program for carbon offset credits (ETS) that allowed U.K. exporters to get offset credits, citing the failure of Brexit. The U.K. government provided a large bridge loan to keep British Steel solvent, but uncertainty has hurt orders from outside the U.K. as overseas customers do not know what tariffs will apply. British Steel needs the additional funds to enable it to continue until a Brexit deal passes that can provide customers confidence as to what will happen.
Per a report in The Guardian, in 1971 the British steel industry employed 323,000 people, and that same number is now estimated at 31,900. At press time, dozens of potential buyers for British Steel have been identified.
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) has imposed new duties of up to 63% on some Chinese aluminum wire and cable imports because of what was described as “price-dumping.”
Per a cited DoC statement, “(DoC) announced the affirmative preliminary determination in the antidumping duty (AD) investigation of imports of aluminum wire and cable from China, finding that exporters from China have dumped aluminum wire and cable in the United States at a margin of 58.51 to 63.47 percent."
Encore Wire Chairman, President and CEO Daniel Jones welcomed the decision, noting that, "These illegal trade practices have undermined our investments in aluminum wire production, which is an important complement to our market-leading copper wire business."
A fact sheet accompanying the notice reported that U.S. imports of aluminum wire and cable from China were valued at more than $157 million in 2017. U.S. customs and border agents will begin collecting cash deposits from importers of these products at the same rates to offset unfair Chinese subsidies, the Commerce Department said.
The Trump administration, reports said, has initiated 168 investigations of unfair trade practices since taking office, more than double the number during a comparable period of the previous administration, according to the release.
LS Cable & System President & CEO Myung Roe-Hyun announced that the company has opened a new cable plant in Poland, its first production base in Europe.
A press release said that the plant is the first such one for a South Korean company in Europe, “the home of cable.” The plant produces parts for electric vehicle batteries and optical cables for communication. More than 100 people, including Cha-Yup Koo, chairman of LS Cable & System; Roe-Hyun; Lee Dong-Wook, CEO of LS C & S Poland; Dariusz Kucharski, mayor of Dzierzoniow; and Mira Sun, Korean ambassador to Poland, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“LS C & S is pushing ahead with its localization and regional base strategy,” Roe-Hyun said. “The Polish plant will serve as the key base for advancing into Europe, and transform the company into a total cable company by adding the power cable business.”
The release said that Poland has very roads and power grids, and the Polish government is known to fully support investment of foreign capital with various tax incentives. Also, the company said that the nation’s geographic location is favorable to export to other European countries and its excellent workforce availability are important reasons for selecting Poland.
LS C & S established a subsidiary that produces parts for electric vehicle batteries (LSEVP) in Poland in November 2017. LSEVP can produce parts for 300,000 electric vehicles annually, and is planning to increase supplies to European automakers starting with LG Chem in nearby Wroclaw at the end of this year.
LS C & S established its optical cable production subsidiary (LSCP) next to its LSEVP plant in February 2018 as the European optical cable market has grown rapidly. It is the third optical cable plant of LS C & S, following the plants it built in Gumi, Korea and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
LSCP began production last April and has proven that it can produce three million fiber km a year—about 7% of the European market—and has since been supplying its products to key European carriers in Italy, France, etc. With the completion of the Polish plant, LS C & S now has a total of 19 business sites at home and abroad, including nine overseas in Vietnam, China and the U.S.
The Prysmian Group has won a contract worth approximately €200 million from Vineyard Wind, LLC, that will require a total of 134 km of power cables for a project that was described as the first U.S. utility-scale offshore wind energy project.
A press release said that Prysmian Group will be responsible for the design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of an HVAC (High Voltage Alternating Current) cable system for the project, which is located 14 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. The two, 220 kV three-core cables, which will use extruded XLPE insulation, will be produced at the Prysmian Group’s plants in Pikkala, Finland, and Arco Felice, Italy. Installation operations will be performed by two Prysmian Group cable-laying vessels: the Cable Enterprise and Ulisse. Delivery and commissioning are scheduled for 2021.
The release said that Prysmian will also provide PRY-CAM permanent monitoring solutions that include long-range Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) and Real Time Thermal Rating (RTTR) systems that collect and analyze data by ways of an artificial intelligence interface, which generates automated alarm signals if a critical situation is identified. “PRY-CAM is the Group’s breakthrough technology that allows on-line, accurate and reliable in-depth information to helps electric assets owners to increase uptime, asset longevity and safety, while reducing maintenance costs and risks.”
“This contract reinforces Prysmian Group’s leading position in the submarine cable market and underpins both our continued role and our commitment to the North American offshore wind sector,” the release said. Hakan Ozmen, EVP Projects, Prysmian Group, observed that the U.S. offshore wind market “is now demonstrating a high level of motivation with a promising growth forecast and we are excited to contribute to realizing this opportunity.”
The project will provide power for some 400,000 homes and businesses while reducing carbon emissions by over 1.6 million tons per year, the release said. To date, there has been just one off-shore wind farm, that the small (30 MW) Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island that began operation in 2016. More projects are now underway or planned, with the state of New York alone seeking to achieve 2,400 MW of offshore wind capacity by 2030.
An offshore wind development company, Vineyard Wind, LLC, is 50% owned by funds of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and 50% by Avangrid Renewables (part of the Iberdrola Group).
NKT has been awarded a turnkey project from Equinor Energy AS for 132 kV high-voltage cable that will connect the oil and gas platforms Johan Sverdrup 2 and Gina Krog.
A press release said that Equinor selected NKT as the turnkey supplier for the high-voltage cable project connecting the oil and gas platforms Gina Krog and Johan Sverdrup 2 in the North Sea. The order, worth approximately 29 million euros, includes the supply and installation of 62 km of a 132 kV AC XLPE high-voltage power cable solution. Connecting the platforms allows Equinor to power Gina Krog from shore by leveraging the already planned power link connecting Johan Sverdrup 2 to the onshore power grid, currently under development by NKT.
“By connecting the two platforms we confirm our strong market position as a reliable turnkey provider of high quality cable systems in the oil and gas segment supporting the growing industry focus on reducing its CO2 emissions,” said NKT Executive Vice President and Head of HV Solutions Andreas Berthou. He noted that the company’s ability to provide the cable, and install it, using its cable laying vessel, the NKT Victoria, was “a differentiator.”
NKT is currently executing on the power cable link connecting Johan Sverdrup 2 to shore. The power from shore connections for the platforms Johan Sverdrup 1 and Martin Linge were recently completed.
Elkem, Inc., announced that it has entered into a partnership with Schlenk Metal Foils to provide RF shielding materials and conductors that are superior to traditionally used flat-rolled wire.
A press release said that there is increasing demand for shielding materials with higher flexibility, reduced thickness, greater width and extended lifetime in the high-frequency cable market, where traditionally rolled silvered copper has limitations. Partnering with Schlenk, an industry leader in rolled metal foils technology, Elkem, which provides specialized electroplating, is now able to offer advanced RF shielding based on silver-plated copper foil.
"The products created from our partnership will enable cable manufacturers to design thinner conductors with higher aspect ratios that are also more flexible and durable," said Schlenk Sales Manager Thorben Beckmann.
Elkem Inc. Vice President Jeff Lawrence said that the RF shielding materials and conductors are available now, both for R&D sample quantities and full-volume production orders. He noted that Elkem, which will exhibit at Interwire at Booth 254, is expanding its plating equipment to provide increased capacity to the market.
Sparkle, an Italian international service provider, announced plans for deployment of BlueMed, a submarine multi-fiber cable that will link Palermo with Genoa.
A press release said that the new cable, to be operational by 2020, will cross the Tyrrhenian Sea connecting Sparkle’s Sicily Hub open data center in Palermo. The data center, which serves 18 international cables with Genoa’s new open landing station, will be directly connected to Milan’s rich digital ecosystem. BlueMed will also include multiple branches within the Tyrrhenian Sea and is set to support further extensions southbound of Sicily.
BlueMed, the release said, will have a capacity up to 240 Tbps, and the cable will be approximately 1,000-km long. The system will provide advanced connectivity between Middle East, Africa, Asia and the European mainland hubs with up to 50% latency reduction than existing terrestrial cables connecting Sicily with Milan.
Sparkle’s new open landing station in Genoa is set to become the alternative priority access for other upcoming submarine cables looking for a diversified entry way to Europe, thus strengthening Italy’s role as digital gateway between Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe, the release said.
Sparkle is part of the TIM Group, which owns and manages a global and technologically advanced proprietary network of about 530,000 km of fiber that include three major regional systems in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Americas as well as an extensive ownership in major international submarine cables.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), a business of Nokia, has signed a contract to supply the Southern Cross NEXT submarine cable the technology it needs to enable it to provide the lowest latency connection between major data centers in Sydney or Auckland and Los Angeles.
Per media reports, the $350 million Southern Cross NEXT project, based on an open-cable architecture, will provide an additional 72 terabits per second of capacity for Southern Cross customers, adding to the existing 20 terabits of capacity potential of the current Southern Cross systems. It is scheduled for completion in 2021.
The NEXT cable will be the largest capacity, lowest latency link between the U.S. West coast and Sydney and Auckland. The contract also includes key interconnecting infrastructure for the South Pacific, providing what Southern Cross says is a reliable direct information pipeline to connect those participating nations—Fiji, Tokelau and Kiribati—to the world, and greater options to the existing cables from Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga connecting to Southern Cross today in Fiji.
The system will provide full fiber connectivity to Auckland, New Zealand, and will incorporate Branching Units (BU) and OADM technology for connections to Fiji, Tokelau and Kiribati. The Marine Survey was completed in 2017, and Sydney BMH and bore landing facilities were completed in 2018, along with landing arrangements in Los Angeles and Auckland.
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