Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (SEI) plans to establish a power cable factory in Scotland to serve the strong demand for power cable, an investment estimated to top £200 million and create 150 highly skilled green jobs.
A press release said that SEI has a proven track record of delivering power cables for offshore wind power projects around the world, including the U.K., Germany, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan’s first commercial offshore wind farms at Akita and Noshiro. Demand for more renewable energy and interconnected national and regional lines to achieve a decarbonized society has been especially strong in the European market. “In particular, the U.K. is expected to be one of the largest markets for power cables, as the country is planning a number of offshore wind power projects to achieve the Scottish government’s Net-zero 2045 and U.K.’s Net-zero 2050.”
SEI has seen a high degree of technical success with its high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cross-linked polyethylene-insulated (XLPE) submarine cable system. It was used for the U.K.-Belgium interconnector (NEMO Link) and successfully completed the installation. The 400 kV HVDC XLPE cable system is the industry’s highest voltage in commercial operation even today. This has led SEI to win multiple global contracts, including a project connecting the U.K. and Ireland (Greenlink Interconnector) and one in Germany (Corridor A-Nord).
A meeting was held May 18 in Tokyo between U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Sumitomo Electric Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Matsumoto and President & COO Osamu Inoue. “I am greatly honored to hear the strong expectations of Prime Minister Sunak and U.K. government regarding our power cable factory investment in the U.K.,” Inoue said.
“I am absolutely delighted that Sumitomo Electric will be coming to Scotland,” said Neil Gray, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy. This significant announcement demonstrates the strength of confidence investors have in our vision for a net zero economy ... and be invaluable to supporting Scotland’s rapidly expanding offshore wind sector.”
A Bahrain project calls for a submarine power cable from its mainland to connect to the Hawar Islands, which are an archipelago of desert islands situated off the west coast of Qatar in the Gulf of Bahrain of the Persian Gulf.
Per media reports, the 25-km power cable will run from Al Bar, the southernmost tip on the island of Bahrain, to north-western Hawar. The goal is to see Hawar get a permanent electricity grid rather than depend on temporary power generators.
Per an on-line posting by Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, a Bahraini deputy prime minister who heads the Ministerial Committee for Reconstruction and Infrastructure Work, the project is scheduled to start in the first half of next year and be completed in the last quarter of 2020. The Electricity and Water Authority has submitted a proposal about the route for the cable.
Bahrain said it was planning to develop sections of Hawar Island, in line with Bahrain’s National Economic Strategy for 2030. The electricity supply needs to be upgraded in order to sustain the development and to meet demands. The project is being funded by the Saudi Fund for Development.
NKT announced that the company has won a project to install 200 km of 80 kV high-voltage DC offshore power cables for the second phase of the Johan Sverdrup oil field development project in Norway.
A press release said that the award, worth approximately 110 million euros, is conditional upon finalization of the formal contract which is likely to take place within a few weeks. The cable system, which will offer a +/-80 kV HVDC solution, is expected to be ready for use in late 2019.
The cable will transmit power from the Norwegian power grid to the offshore oil field, the release said, adding that power from shore to the oil platform is an environmentally sustainable solution, significantly reducing carbon emissions from oil and gas producti
Johan Sverdrup was described as among the five biggest oil fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. “I am very pleased that we continue working with our long-term customer Equinor Energy AS,” said NKT President and CEO Michael Hedegaard Lyng. “I see the letter of award as proof of our premium DC technology capabilities and of our ability to provide turnkey solutions with NKT Victoria as a differentiator.” He added that the award further bolsters the company’s “leading market position in the oil and gas segment, which along with offshore wind and interconnectors represents good growth opportunities for NKT.”
Earlier in 2018, NKT completed supply and installation of the high-voltage DC offshore power cable solution for the first phase of the Johan Sverdrup development project. Installation was conducted by NKT’s own industry leading cable-laying vessel NKT Victoria operating at 600 meters depth, which marks one of the deepest installations of bundled high-voltage DC cables in the world. In addition, the Johan Sverdrup 1 solution from NKT now constitutes the world’s longest extruded offshore cable to an offshore oil and gas platform facility.
LS Cable & System is advancing its presence in the Indonesian cable market by setting up a joint corporation with the AG Group, which has a wide multi-sector presence in the country.
A press release said that LS signed an agreement with AG Group to jointly invest $40 million in the construction of cable plants near Jakarta with the aim of completion by 2019. The plants are expected to produce overhead cables for infrastructure and low and medium voltage cables used for construction and plants, generating around $100 million by 2025, LS said.
LS Cable & System CEO Myung said the discussion with AG Group received “a boost” after President Moon Jae-in announced the New Southern Policy during a business forum with Indonesia last November.
The AG Group was described as one of Indonesia’s top 10 companies, active in banking, hotels, construction and resorts.
Prysmian announced that it has won a contract from JG Summit Petrochemicals Group in the Philippines that calls for it to supply 820 km of cable for use in an expansion of the company’s operations.
A press release said that Prysmian will supply a mix of low- and medium-voltage power cable, instrumentation and control cable and telecom cable for plant and petrochemical applications. They will be used for the customer’s OSBL (Outside Battery Limits) Phase 1 Expansion Project, planned as the first expansion phase to the existing JG Summit facilities that will see construction begin this year. The cable will be produced at Prysmian plants in China, with delivery later this year.
JGSPG consists of JG Summit Petrochemical Corporation (JGSPC)—the largest manufacturer of polyolefins in the Philippines and the first and only integrated PE and PP resin manufacturer in the country—and JG Summit Olefins Corporation (JGSOC), which operates the only naphtha cracker plant in the Philippines. The JGSPG complex is 120 km south of Metro Manila in Batangas City, where its 250-hectare complex houses the naphtha cracker plant and the polymer plants.
The release noted that the Prysmian Group was the only cable maker in the region that could supply all the necessary cable. Irene C. Wilson, Oil & Gas Asia Pacific Business Director at Prysmian Group, said that JG Summit is a new client that has huge projected growth in the petrochemical and LNG front future."
The details at this point are sparse, but the EU has approved €578 million in funding for a power cable that will cross the Bay of Biscay, connecting Spain and France, a distance of some run for 230 miles.
A report in Spain’s Olive Press said that the power cable to carry renewable energy is needed to ease one of Europe’s worst network bottlenecks. The contract, described as the highest ever, will transmit excess renewable energy between the two countries. The goal is to double current power capacity to 5,000 megawatts.
“Only a fully interconnected market will improve Europe’s security of supply, ending the dependence of single suppliers, and give consumers more choice,” said Europe Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete, who was cited in the report. In it, he said that the project would “end the isolation of the Iberian Peninsula and boost interconnectivity between the bloc. “Only a fully interconnected market will improve Europe’s security of supply, ending the dependence of single suppliers, and give consumers more choice.”
The EU hopes the link will stave off dependency on Russian oil, increase renewable energy output and help meet climate goals.
The Prysmian Group announced that it has been awarded a contract worth approximately €40 million for a new submarine cable connection between the isle of Capri and Sorrento (Naples) from an Italian transmission system operator.
A press release said that the contract, from Rete Italia SpA, a business of Terna SpA, calls for the turn-key installation of an HVAC 150 kV power cable link between the power stations located in Sorrento and on Capri’s Gasto ecological island, following a 16-km submarine and 3-km land route. The Capri-Sorrento cables will be manufactured at Prysmian’s plant in Arco Felice (Naples), with cable laying done by the Prysmian vessel, "Cable Enterprise." Prysmian will provide all the related network components and required specialist civil engineering works.
The project, which is scheduled for completion in 2019, follows a prior related contract from Terna, the release said. In 2013, Prysmian was chosen to be cable supplier for the Capri-Torre Annunziata project, a HVAC 150 kV submarine cable connection between Capri and the mainland that was approximately 31 km in length.
"It is a source of great satisfaction and pride to be involved in the creation of infrastructure of such strategic importance and prestige for Italy," said Massimo Battaini, senior vice president of energy projects for the Prysmian Group. The second power link will complete the Capri connection ring, increasing the efficiency and reliability of the island’s power system.
The Prysmian Group notes that it has completed a number of important infrastructure projects in the Mediterranean Basin, such as the SA.PE.I. connections (Sardinia-Italian mainland), Sorgente-Rizziconi (Sicily-Calabria), and Capri-Torre Annunziata in Italy; Spain-Morocco, Iberian Peninsula-Mallorca, Mallorca-Ibiza in Spain; and the recently completed longest connection of the Cyclades submarine ring in Greece.
How to resolve AdBlock issue?