Communications group Orange Marine has contracted ship engineering and construction company Vard to provide designs for a new cable-laying and repair vessel
Orange has ordered the cable layer from Colombo Dockyard, the largest shipyard in Sri Lanka, for repairing its global network of subsea fibre optic lines.
Vard is providing a VARD 9 03 design for this newbuilding project. It was specially designed to maintain submarine cables, both fibre-optic telecommunication cables and inter-array power cables used in offshore windfarms.
This order comes as more offshore production facilities are linked to a growing fibre-optic network in the North Sea and elsewhere and global communications networks are expanding to provide faster connectivity to remote communities.
Vard said it developed the vessel design according to Orange’s operating requirements with special attention to the vessel hull design in terms of its sea-keeping capabilities and low fuel consumption. This design is among other Vard cable-layer designs being used in newbuilding projects for Prysmian and Van Oord.
Vard general manager of business unit offshore and specialised vessels Fredrik Hessen said this was “another innovative vessel design within the fibre-optic cable ship segment”.
Orange has previously used Vard’s design for a cable-laying and repair vessel. It used a VARD 9 01 design for Pierre de Fermat, built in 2014 to Orange’s specific requirements.
Colombo Dockyard has experience building cable-laying and repair vessels with delivery in 2019 of KDDI Cable Infinity to Japan-headquartered Kokusai Cable Ship, built to a VARD 9 01 design.
Vard has provided designs for two power cable-laying vessels under construction – VARD 9 04 design for a vessel ordered by Prysmian, and the recently signed contract for the VARD 9 02 design for Van Oord.
During the past 10 years, other cable layers have been built to Vard designs, such as Connector built in 2011 for Jan De Nul Group and inter-array cable laying vessel Seaway Aimery built at Remontova Shipyard for Siem Offshore in 2016.
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