Page 44: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2023)

New Products - Tools

New Subsea Power Cable Cutting, Clamping Tool

Credeblug and Tecnalia have joined forces to improve the submarine cable mooring, cutting and recovery times, we offer maintenance and repair operations carried out on underwater differentiating technology in the market and certainty in this power cables. The end result: the manufacture and validation type of operation.” of the ? rst cutting and clamping tool, which makes it possible Credeblug’s tool combines a cable grip and a cutter in a to secure one end of a cable after it has been cut, aiming to save single hydraulic tool. The grab also includes lighting and vi- time and money. sion systems for cable tracing and a better grab positioning. “This functionality has been called for by offshore cable re- Compared to existing cable cutters, the long arms of the grab pair teams all over the world since such operations began in the make it easier to locate and retrieve cables from the seabed, 19th century,” said Joannes Berquè, a TECNALIA researcher. as the arms make it possible to probe much deeper into the “To this day, current cutting tools mean that the ends of the seabed where the cable is normally buried. Once the cable has cable drop off after they have been cut. The repair operation been grabbed and secured under water, the guillotine cutter is then requires an additional search for the end of the cable with activated. The most critical feature is that the grab hangs ? rmly another tool, usually a cable clamp, which gropes around the onto the cable after the cut, rather than dropping the ends onto seabed in poor visibility, which is challenging even for the best the seabed. The cut end is then safely raised by the grab and equipment. In rough seas, this additional search and lift opera- immediately handed over to the deck crew to prepare it for the tion can take several hours, with a knock-on effect on the entire splicing team.

repair operation. The repair vessel that is mobilised can cost After three years of development and testing at the Credeblug more than 100,000 euros per day”. plant in Azpeitia, in March 2023 they were successfully able “The Cabletool project is a new step in Credeblug’s strategy to carry out their validation at sea, in the port of Bermeo (Biz- to develop speci? c loading tools for the Offshore sector,” said kaia), as part of an R&D project supported by the Basque Gov-

Asier Susaeta, GM Credeblug. ernment’s Hazitek Programme (WIND2GRID). The gripping, “We already have technology capable of handling large loads cutting and clamping tool is now available for fully shielded up to 1000 meters deep, so this new development is a step for- underwater power cables up to 270 mm, and larger sizes can be ward in terms of functionality. We believe that by reducing manufactured on request.

Source: Credeblug, Tecnalia 44 July/August 2023

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