deugro Italy and deugro Chartering have delivered 54 km of high voltage alternating current (HVAC) cables to a cable-laying vessel in Turkey, as part of the Turkish crossing project.
The 3,300 tons (3,353 tonnes) of cable had to be transported from deugro’s client’s – Prysmian Powerlink – manufacturing plant in Pikkala, Finland in time to meet the cable-laying vessel – Giulio Verne – at the job site, in the Dardanelles Strait, Turkey.
With a tight turnaround period, deugro designed and delivered a complete turnkey, all-in-one service solution which included the provision of tank engineering and installation, spooling, appropriate personnel and all related activities and equipment, as well as ocean transportation.
The vessel used was the BBC Xingang, however static tanks needed to be fitted on board the vessel as well as its bow being converted. Within seven days, these modifications were made at Germany’s port of Bremerhaven and the vessel arrived at the Pikkala Prysmian port ready to be loaded with the cables.
“The project team encountered harsh weather conditions and surface ice and had to deal with the fairly long distance from the ship’s anchor position to shore. This required a perfectly aligned mooring system and constant monitoring,” said Francesco Pignati, project manager at deugro Italy.
After the cables were successfully spooled into the custom-designed tanks, the BBC Xingang arrived at the port of Hydarpaşa – in Istanbul – as intended. After this, the vessel sailed to the port of Naples, where the spooling equipment was demobilised.
deugro Italy’s Stefano Sortino said: “Due to the critical urgency—the cable needed to be quickly delivered to commence installation and keep the overall cost of the project to a minimum—scheduling, precise preparation and smooth project execution were paramount.”
