Nexans wins subsea cable contract

Nexans has won a contract worth approximately €39m (£35m) to supply the subsea power-export cables for Phase I of the Belgian Belwind Offshore Windfarm project, located on the Bligh Bank, 46km off the coast of Zeebrugge.

Nexans will supply and install 52km of 170kV high-voltage power-export cable with an optical-fibre insert to the Dutch Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor, Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors for the first phase of the windfarm project.

The optical-fibre elements will be manufactured at Nexans’ factory at Rognan, Norway, while the export cable will be made at the company’s factory located in Halden, Norway.

The cable will connect the windfarm, comprising 55 wind turbines that will generate a total of 165MW, to the Belgian power network. The cable will be laid by Nexans’ cable-laying vessel, C/S Nexans Skagerrak, and buried into the seabed using Nexans’ CapJet trenching system.

Delivery is scheduled for the summer of 2010, with the windfarm coming on stream in 2011. Once the project is completed, Nexans’ cable technology will transmit power to 165,000 households in Belgium.