Rotech moving to USA after first French offshore wind farm

Rotech Subsea has secured a new contract in the U.S. after having completed a four-month cable de-burial and re-burial campaign at Saint-Nazaire, France’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.

Rotech used its RS2 CFE equipment spread to carry out cable de-burial and re-burial on omega joints and cable ends at the wind farm located off the Guérande peninsula.

The company executed a similar scope at Saint-Nazaire in November 2021 for the same client.

“It was great to work again with this leading submarine cable player in Saint Nazaire. The RS2 performed as expected in the soil conditions and the rapid backfilling on the trench posed no problems for the 60kPa tool,” said director of Subsea at Rotech, Stephen Cochrane.

“We look forward to working with the client again later in the year on a new award with them in the United States for cable trenching ops off the Eastern Seaboard.”

Operating in heavy/dense sands at a depth of 20-30 meters, Rotech’s RS2 tool de-buried 650 meters of cable, including two joint areas and four cut points in a single pass.

Once remedial works were carried out, the cable was buried to 1.5-2 meters DOL in one pass, save for two small remedial sections. The soil conditions experience posed no problem for the RS2 the tool progressed at 1 to 2m/min, Rotech said.

Saint-Nazaire, also known as Parc éolien en mer du Banc de Guérande, will comprise 80 GE Haliade 6 MW turbines. The 480 MW project is set to be completed by the end of the year. 

Rotech recently completed “challenging” cable de-burial, cut and recovery works at the Triton Knoll offshore wind project in the UK.

The company deployed its RS2-3 Hybrid controlled flow excavation (CFE) tool to complete the de-burial of approximately 500 meters of cable, with its RSG-C tool completing the cable cutting at both ends and recovery to the vessel’s deck.

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