Desktop Study

Properly executed, a DTS should detail all the influences on cable route safety and provide sound engineering solutions for the environment encountered. It should also specify the amounts of submarine cable and the plant required to build the system.

The DTS provides a technical reference for the entire project and throughout the life of the cable system, detailing factors likely to influence all subsequent activities, from survey through to installation, and then throughout the system’s operations and maintenance lifecycle.

• Visit potential landing sites to assess the engineering requirements, then meet with local representatives of relevant marine authorities and visit industry representatives and other entities whose actions may affect the integrity of the cable (e.g. fishing, shipping, planning and port authorities).
• Research bathymetry, seafloor and shallow seabed lithology, currents, weather, seismology, tides, permits, other seabed users, fishing, and shipping.
• Identify areas of potential difficulty for survey, installation and subsequent maintenance.
• Investigate and detail environmental and cultural factors relating to the cable route, highlighting relevant statutes and regulations of the various authoritative bodies.
• Identify possible sources of risk to the cable – and the extent of that risk for the cable system. This includes an analysis of faults on existing systems nearby from Global Marine’s extensive database. This data can also be supplied in a standalone Fault Analysis report.
• Identify permits, licences and other regulatory requirements necessary to install the cable and for the cable to remain in situ along the proposed route.
• Recommend routes that do not conflict with existing subsea infrastructure.

Cable Protection Assessments

Global Marine also provide Cable Protection Assessments to help in-service system owners decide how to improve system reliability on an installed system that has suffered faults.

Driving the Sector

Global Marine is a long standing members of the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), European Subsea Cable Association (ESCA) and the North American Submarine Cable Association (NASCA). All our Desktop Studies comply with ICPC Recommendation No 9 “Minimum Technical Requirements for a Desktop Study”.

Oil & gas inter-platform and platform to shore

• Vinland Cable System linking platforms & FPSOs back to shore in Newfoundland
• Darwin – Bayu Undan in northwest Australia & Timor Leste
• Ras Laffan to Al Shaheen in Qatar
• Multiple North Sea projects

Transoceanic systems

• Midgardsormen cable linking the US to Denmark and the UK
• Hibernia Express low-latency transatlantic system

Point to point cables & regional networks

• PTO, 12 cables linking nine islands in the Philippines
• Khaleej-1, linking Gulf countries from Iraq to Oman
• ASCS cable linking Chile to Antarctica
• DCN system linking 13 countries in the Caribbean