Our Arctic Neighbors: Nexans to make cables for Barents Sea rig

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Russia’s largest shipbuilding company, Sevmash, has awarded a contract worth about $9 million to Paris-based Nexans to develop, manufacture and supply 528 miles of low-temperature and ice-resistant control, instrumentation and power cables for the marine ice-protected Prirazlomnaya stationary drilling rig in the Barents Sea, Nexans said in a release Oct. 28. The cables will be manufactured at the facilities of Nexans Kukdong Electric Wire Co. in Korea. Production has already started and deliveries will continue until the end of 2011. The Prirazlomnaya rig has been constructed for use in the Prirazlomnoye oil field in the Pechora Sea, which is to be operated by a subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom. It will be Russia’s first offshore Arctic oil project.

“The severe climate and harsh operating conditions presented by the high ice loads require unique marine cable technologies to provide the optimum combination of low-temperature resistance and fire-resistant, low-smoke, halogen-free properties,” Nexans said.