Subsea and underground challenges

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.

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 generally 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

of low-voltage cables, telecommunication and data transmission cables, plastic and elastomer compounds), and another in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, producing the wooden drums for the transportation of cables.

Focused on innovation

Today, as one of the largest cable industries in Greece, Hellenic Cables produces submarine cables under the Fulgor name and sells its wide product range under the Cablel trademark, including PCV, EPR and ELPE insulated power cables rated up to 500kV, marine and low-smoke halogen-free cables, fire-resistant cables, telecoms, signal and data cables with copper conductors or optical fibres, and also enamelled wires. All of its products are supplied to a very wide variety of international standards.

It’s hardly surprising that Hellenic Cables has a strong focus on R&D, with a team of at least 30 specialists based in Corinthos, working on new and improved products and on topics such as productivity and production efficiency.

At the Hannover Messe exhibition, Hellenic Cables will be focusing specifically on its capabilities and expertise in high voltage and extra-high voltage cables, and on its particular strengths in the submarine cable market.

Major contracts

It has secured a number of major contracts in this area in recent months. Last year, the independent power transmission operator ADMIE commissioned Hellenic Cables to supply underground and submarine cable links of 150kV for the second sub-project of the Cyclades Islands Interconnection Tender.

This €93m project is providing links from Syros to Tinos, Mykonos and Paros, and a 150kV cable terminal in Tinos. Hellenic Cables is responsible for the supply of cables, the cable laying, the protection of cables in coastal areas, and the necessary connections with the existing ADMIE network. The high voltage submarine cables are being produced at the Fulgor facility in Corinth. The interconnection of the Cyclades Islands to the Greek power grid will be instrumental in the development of the Cyclades – ensuring the best environmental and economic conditions for local communities, while reducing the cost burden of supplying this power.

In January this year (2015), Fulgor was awarded a €36.4m contract by Terna Energy for the cable interconnection of the 73.2mW St George Wind Park, on the island of St George, south of Cape Sounio.

Fulgor is supplying 37.4km of 150kV high voltage submarine cable, and as also responsible for laying the cable in depths of up to 230 metres, cable protection on the sea bed along the whole route, and implementation of the necessary terminations and connections to the existing high voltage grid in Lavrio. The project is due to be completed later this year.

The St George Wind Park will provide the electricity needs of more than 40,000 households, while saving more than 60,000 tonnes of oil and eliminating 180,000 tonnes of emissions per year.

This high-profile project underlines the growing influence of the Hellenic Cables Group, as one of the few global high voltage submarine cable suppliers that are capable of bidding for such high-standard international projects. n

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