SUBSEA AND UNDERGROUND CHALLENGES IT
is four years since Hellenic Cables acquired the Corinth factory of a former competitor, Fulgor – a move that opened a whole new chapter for this internationally important company. Having added the factory to its portfolio, Hellenic Cables embarked on a more than €60m programme of innovation, installing the latest high-technology equipment and machines and totally overhauling this important facility. The result: a 220,000 square metre manufacturing plant just 70km south of Athens, with access to its own private dock, enabling High Voltage submarine cables to be fed direct, in long continuous lengths, from the production floor on to drums onboard visiting ships including cable laying vessels. From there, the cables are shipped direct to installation sites all over the world. The capacity of this factory is now 50,000 tonnes of cable a year, as well as 120,000 tonnes of wire rope. “The power and optical fibre submarine cables market is very specialist,” says Menelaos Tsagkarakis, electrical and computer
engineer in Hellenic Cables’ technical sales department. “There are very few companies and factories that can provide this cable. The market is generally utilities and the oil & gas sector – and our customers are from all over the world. Recently we had an installation in Canada; the ship went to Canada for installation of the cable direct from our factory.”
Geographic coverage There is increasing demand for high voltage (up to 150kV) and extra-high voltage (200-400kV) cables, as energy infrastructure is installed and upgraded all over the world. Submarine cables are additionally much in demand from countries with a lot of islands. “For example, we shipped a quantity of submarine cable to the Bahamas, for power supplies to the islands,” says Mr Tsagkarakis. North of Athens, Hellenic Cable has another very large factory, producing up to 60,000 tonnes a year of medium, high and extra-high voltage cables for underground applications. Here the customers are gener-
Hellenic Cables is reaping the benefits of a submarine cable plant major acquisition and a more than €60m investment programme – and reporting particularly strong demand for its specialist high-voltage and extra-high voltage underground and submarine cables. Felicity Landon reports.
ally utility companies, factories in industrial zones and energy production plants. “We are supplying this underground cable everywhere in the world. The main market is Europe followed by the Gulf and North America.” Africa is an important target too, he says, as many countries seek to develop their infrastructure. “We are working on this market – we have already implemented two big projects there(extra-high-voltage and submarine) in Algeria and Egypt, and we want to do more.” Hellenic Cables’ history goes back to 1950, when it started out as a cable production plant of Viohalco. It wasn’t until 1973 that the company was established as an independent subsidiary under the Hellenic Cables name. It has two other factories in Greece – one producing plastic compounds for cable sheathing (an important in-house advantage) and the other producing enamelled wires for transformers. It also has a factory in Bucharest, Romania, producing up to 50,000 tonnes a year
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