Two milestones in for European JV at Senegalese links

The UK-Belgium joint venture established last year has begun offshore operations and has already passed milestones for a project in Senegal that is part of a program that aims to revolutionize the country’s power infrastructure and provide sustainable electricity to millions of people.

Under a $200 million contract, UK’s Enshore Subsea and Belgian Herbosch-Kiere are delivering onshore and offshore works for the two links for the Senegal Power Compact program, financed by the U.S.-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Senegalese Government to contribute to the global fight against poverty.

In early June, Herbosch-Kiere’s multipurpose vessel Atlantis arrived at the project site in Dakar with Enshore Subsea’s ENS1600 trencher onboard, after which the dual-mode trencher started digging two trenches of 17.5 kilometers each for the 225 kV cable links of the project.

The partners in the integrated Dakar Marine Link joint venture reported that they had last week hit a milestone when two 250-meter HDPE ducts, which will bring ashore the two submarine power cables, were submerged on the seabed in the Bay of Dakar.

The ducts were manufactured by HERBOSCH-KIERE, with engineering and project management support from Enshore Subsea, and consist of 12-meter sections welded together on land using mirror welding. A pre-wire is currently in place to pull the cable through later. Both ducts were bolted together, accounting for a total length of 500 meters that was submerged to the seabed in one piece.

The seabed cone penetration test (CPT) was completed some two weeks ago.

The UK-Belgian joint venture manages the full EPCI contract for the project on behalf of the client Millennium Challenge Account Senegal II (MCA-Senegal II).

Eiffage Sénégal is responsible for the onshore civil engineering works near Rive Bel Air, while Eiffage Énergie Systèmes will install the onshore cables.