Prysmian wins major contract for landmark Middle East interconnection project

Prysmian Group has won a €60 million contract to lay the submarine cables for the Project Lighting interconnection project in the United Arab Emirates.

Prysmian entered into a €220 million limited notice to proceed in January with Samsung C&T, as part of its EPC consortium with Jan De Nul, for the project that is said to be the first-of-its-kind high-voltage, direct current (HVDC-VSC) subsea power transmission system in the Middle East.

The Italian cabling giant will design, supply, assemble and test a symmetrical monopole system consisting of four HVDC 320 kV single-core cables with XLPE insulation, along with fiber optic cable systems, that will connect the Al Mirfa onshore converter station to the Al Ghallan artificial island in the Arabian Gulf, off the Abu Dhabi coast.

Offshore installation operations will be performed by the company’s DP cable-laying vessel Leonardo da Vinci, with the shallow water activities being performed by the cable-laying barge Ulisse.

The project will comprise a subsea route of approximately 134 kilometers of HVDC cables, and onshore routes located at Al Mirfa and Al Ghallan Island totaling approximately 3.5 kilometers of HVDC land cable.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC (TAQA) reached the financial closing of the $3.8 billion strategic project set to power and decarbonize ADNOC’s offshore production operations on 23 September.

The main purpose of the new HVDC link is to replace ADNOC’s current offshore power with a green onshore power source, reducing its environmental impact and CO2 emissions, in addition to supporting its objective to decarbonize offshore production operations.

With a capacity of 3.2 GW, the Lighting project will be the most powerful power-from-shore solution in the MENA region to date, as well as the first HVDC power-from-shore solution outside Norwegian waters.

It is expected to be commissioned in 2025.

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