Submarine Cable In The Oil And Gas Market And Offshore Windfarms By Kurt Ruderman
The soaring cost of oil and gas and the move to renewable energy sources such as windfarms are driving the demand for offshore projects that require specialized submarine cable.
longest umblical for Statoil’s Snøhvit offshore gas field. Statoil installed the cable last month. The entire subsea operation located 144 km offshore is controlled from an onshore facility. Operating offshore sites from onshore is a nascent trend, which aims to reduce capex and opex. There are two other similar projects: the Ormen Lange project off Norway and The West Delta project in the Mediterranean off Egypt.
Although these niche markets are modest in size compared to the submarine telecom market, demand for these specialty cables is growing steadily. Cable makers such as Pirelli and Nexans are “There are less than 15 Over the past 10 years, oil turning out new cable designs important offshore windfarms and gas companies have to meet the demands of moved farther off shore these markets, which include today, but the number will and into deeper waters multifunctional cables called increase over the next few searching for new oil and umbilicals for the oil and gas gas fields. The jump in oil industry and hybrid power years, says Gordon Edge and gas prices has made cables with optical fibers for of the British Wind Energy it economically feasible offshore windfarms. Offshore Association (BWEA). to drill in deep waters, shore gas and oil is the larger where operations are more of these two niche markets costly than in shallow water. Companies are also investing in new technologies such as powerful In Brazil, which has some of the world’s most electric sub sea pumps that will help them to important offshore oil and gas fields, Pirelli will squeeze the last drops out of old wells. open a new facility next year to manufacture umbilicals. “By 2015, 25 percent of offshore oil will come from deep water wells – more than 500 meters Nexans is also targeting projects in Brazil with deep – compared to 10 percent in 2004,” said Steve newly designed umbilicals for offshore operations Robertson, manager oil and gas research at Douglas that require free hanging umbilicals in 2,500 meters Westwood, a UK-based consultancy. of water to connect platforms to templates on the sea bottom. In Norway, Nexans has supplied the world’s