Page 50: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Oct/Nov 2013)

49 51

EPIC

JDR Cable Systems is now producing production umbilicals and power cables at

Fabrication

Hartlepool. ships anymore.” grows in North-

This has resulted in high levels of investment in the area in recent years.

In 2011, JDR Cable Systems opened a £40 million (US$62 million) sub- east England sea production umbilical and subsea power cable quayside manufacturing

By Elaine Maslin

Martin Moon, managing director of plant at Hartlepool. ncreasing construction and instal- Darlington-based Subsea Innovation, The same year, the site produced lation activity globally is driving a says: “The strength of the northeast is 200km of subsea array cables each demand for fabrication and manu- that it has always had a strong engi- for the London Array and Greater

I facturing capabilities. neering background. I moved here 35 Gabbard offshore wind farms, south-

With its shipbuilding and petro- years ago to work in the shipyards, east England. It is now shipping subsea chemical heritage, northeast England is and the area still has the highest production umbilicals, in carousels rising to meet the challenge. percentage of naval architects in the carrying up to 4000-tonne each, to

From a cluster of towns centering on world, even though it is not building southeast Asia from the facility.

Newcastle, Darlington, and Teesside, A recent order will see JDR creat- umbilicals for Australia’s Wheatstone ing 10 custom-designed and Angola’s Lianzi developments umbilicals, totaling 13km, for will be made at a new umbilical Swiber Offshore Construction manufacturing plant. to install on Brunei Shell’s

J-lay towers for newbuild Champion feld, offshore cable-lay vessels, destined for Brunei.

Brazil, are being fabricated in the area, Further umbilicals manu- alongside launch and recovery systems facturing capability is being (LARS) for the global market. created by DUCO, at Walker

Deepsea mining technology, to be Riverside, Newcastle, also used offshore Australasia, is being home to umbilicals manufac- developed and manufactured here. turer Wellstream, now part of GE

Oil & Gas.

SMD’s Quasar ROV, currently being built for

DUCO, a subsidiary of Technip, is

Modus Seabed Intervention.

OE | October 2013 oedigital.com 52 052_OE1013_EPIC4-newcastle.indd 52 9/29/13 10:01 PM