Global Offshore announces a five-year export cable repair framework with BBE

Mar 23, 2020 - 19:48
Global Offshore announces a five-year export cable repair framework with BBE
Photo: Global Offshore

Global Offshore, a leading provider of cable installation, repair and trenching services to the offshore renewables, utilities and oil & gas markets and part of the Global Marine Group, announced today a five-year export cable repair framework with Balfour Beatty Investments and Equitix (BBE), covering the three OFTOs they own: Humber Gateway, Gwynt Y Môr and Thanet.

The Complete Cable Care solution is designed to respond quickly to power cable damage and therefore brings new standards of readiness and responsiveness to the industry. The service is supported by Global Marine Group’s fleet of cable ships and CTVs, a maintained stock of universal power joints and cable, with access to qualified jointers, prepared to respond to a fault or incident on any of the OFTOs covered by this agreement.

With a total of 152km of export cable covered, the framework agreement, which began in February, sees BBE join Transmission Capital Partners, Ørsted, Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks and Vattenfall all with export or array cable being safeguarded under similar agreements with Global Offshore.

Director of Power Cable Maintenance, Andrew Lloyd, commented:

“Export cable faults have serious implications on the amount of energy that can be harnessed and utilised from an offshore wind farm, so proactive intervention before they happen as well as quick action when they do occur make all the difference to minimising any loss in revenue. With our reliance on renewable energy ever increasing, we’re pleased to be working with BBE as their risk reduction and repair partner across these three important UK sites.”

Lloyd continued:

“As an active player in the sector since the very first European wind farm installation 20 years ago, and to date managing multiple frame agreements covering over 2,000km of power cable, we’re able to utilise pre-engineered scenario plans alongside access to the right cable spares, joints, jointers and assets, all part of our Complete Cable Care solution, to reduce the average 100 day export cable repair time considerably.”

John Sinclair representing BBE said:

“BBE has developed a suite of contingency plans to address all credible events that could impact on OFTO availability. The contingency plan for a subsea cable fault identified the potential time and cost savings that could be achieved by entering into a framework agreement with a marine repair contractor, so BBE is delighted to have signed this five year agreement with the Global Marine Group.”