Effective planning for marine works during the operational life of a submarine cable is critical to both resilience and the management of through-life costs.
Marine operations expertise remains critical during the operational phase of a project, when unanticipated repair campaigns and delays can decimate a tightly controlled budget. It is imperative that a realistic and flexible strategy is in place with clear delineation of responsibilities to ensure a prompt and appropriate response to any threat scenario. This may involve membership of a shared resource maintenance agreement, or it may be a bespoke arrangement where appropriate vessels are chartered on demand. Even if a repair is carried out under warranty, it should still be subject to the same level of technical surveillance as is typical during construction.
In recent years Red Penguin has developed repair preparedness strategies and plans for several major operational interconnectors and with these now in place conduct drills to test readiness and responsiveness of measures instigated. We provide on-call services under which a repair management team can be mobilised at short notice, and others under which an experienced offshore representative is on constant standby to attend a repair. We manage and attend depth-of-burial and maintenance surveys, providing recommendations on any additional protection measures required as appropriate. We are also mitigating risk and providing guidance for major subsea cable decommissions.
Such services are often bespoke, and tailored to the specific needs of the asset/project, but they fall broadly into the following categories:
- Operations and Maintenance (O&M)
- Fault Response Planning
- Repair Management
- Decommissioning Planning
