Nexans, a worldwide leading expert in the cable industry, has secured a 16 million Euro contract with Statoil to engineer and supply a 16.5km subsea power umbilical that will be used to connect the Gullfaks C platform in the North Sea to its subsea compression and processing equipment.

The Gullfaks project, located 160km west of Sognefjorden, Norway, is the second largest subsea gas compression project planned by Statoil, after the Asgard subsea gas compression project, which it is also responsible for.

The field comprises several subsea templates at a depth of 135 metres. Statoil plans to install a subsea compressor that will facilitate the compression and transportation of gas.

“We are pleased to have been selected as a supplier of umbilicals for this contract, which we believe is a result of a combination of proven expertise, skills and technology in this sector”, says Ragnvald Graff, Sales & Marketing Director, Hybrid Underwater Cables Division, Nexans.

Subsea gas compression forms part of Statoil’s ambition to develop the necessary elements required to create the ‘subsea factory’ to pave the way towards oil and gas exploration in the Arctic and other deepwater regions.

Nexans pioneered umbilical technology and its power umbilicals integrate the functions of power cables and umbilicals in a single cable, enabling a high-voltage (HV) supply to be provided for deepwater projects. The power umbilical includes a number of steel tubes as well as fiber-optic elements, signal cables for control and monitoring, as well as insulated power cores, all being supplied from Nexans’ factories.

By eliminating the need to transport and install separate power and control umbilicals, the power umbilical significantly reduces transportation and installation costs.

Subsea World News Staff , June 07, 2012; Image: Statoil