First for offshore oil field

Nexans and BP are working together on the Power from Shore project to make Valhall, in the Norwegian North Sea, the world’s first offshore oil field to receive all its electricity from land, with no need for on-platform generation. In a contract worth around e98 million, Nexans will manufacture, deliver and install 292 km of HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current)-IRC maritime cable and a separate fibre-optic submarine cable as well as all the associated equipment both at the land station and on the platform. The subsea power link forms part of a re-development of the Valhall field, including a new production and hotel platform.
The subsea cable will be a 150 kV DC cable with an integral return conductor, similar to the cable Nexans delivered for the Moyle Interconnector project in 2001, which links Northern Ireland and Scotland. The fibre-optic cable will be bundled to the power cable during installation. Nexans is carrying out this project on a turnkey basis and will install and also bury the cable. The installation work will take place in 2008 and 2009 using the cable laying ship the C/S Skagerrak. For protection against external damage (such as fishing boat activity), the cable will be buried to a depth of around one metre into the seabed using Nexans’ CapJet system.