Hydro Group upgrades cable manufacturing facility

Business Developments & Projects

Hydro Group has completed the latest phase of around £1 million investment programme with the installation and commissioning of a new cable extrusion line within the cable manufacturing arm of the business.

Cable extrusion line (Courtesy of Hydro Group)
A photo of a cable extrusion line (Courtesy of Hydro Group)
Cable extrusion line (Courtesy of Hydro Group)

Hydro Group worked closely with industry specialists over the last 18 months to define a fully automated line, allowing the company to expand its product portfolio of bespoke subsea cables for harsh environments.

Together with bespoke manufactured Caterpillar units and the automated control system, this represents a major upgrade for the facility.

The new line will streamline the whole extrusion process, increasing the efficiency of the manufacturing plant, and allowing the operators the ability to move more freely between assets, according to Hydro Group.

It will mean an enhanced capability in terms of the cable designs offering to all marine and subsea markets.

Heather Andrade, Hydro Group’s head of sales, said: “In order to meet the ever-increasing requirements of our defence, renewable, oil and gas markets, we identified the need to manufacture longer, heavier and more complex cables, increase our capacity and improve our turnaround times”.

Tom Blevins, Hydro Group’s cable systems production manager, said: “With challenges both to some existing and increasing new design concepts, I am delighted to have the backing of the business to help my team meet these demands.

“The reliability and confidence these investments will bring to the workforce allow us to continue to push forward in these very challenging times. The new line allows us to efficiently extrude cables with an increased weight capacity of 15 tonnes, up to a diameter of 110 mm and at speeds of 20m/min”.