Jdr Article

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In an ever-changing market, cable company JDR is at

the cutting edge of business. Innovative and dynamic,

it’s an organisation that’s always thinking ahead

75

CABLES & INSTALLATION

OFFSHORE WIND ENGINEERING SUMMER 2010

Well connected

JDR is a leading provider of custom-

designed and manufactured static

and dynamic subsea power cables,

umbilical systems and marine cables for

a broad range of applications through-

out the oil and gas sector, offshore

renewable energy industry, and seismic

and defence markets.

This year JDR Cable Systems

was winner of a Queen’s award

for enterprise in recognition of the

company’s international trade suc-

cess. Over the past five years JDR

has made significant investments in

new people, facilities and equipment

to manufacture larger and longer

subsea umbilicals and power cablesfor worldwide projects. New produc-

tion facilities at quayside locations in

Sattahip, Thailand, Hartlepool, England

and Krimpen, Netherlands have ena-

bled the company to deliver complex

systems to a wide range of overseas

projects. The company opened its

purpose-built factory in the deepwater

port of Hartlepool in July 2009 and is

already expanding into adjacent build-

ings and adding larger machinery to

serve demands from the growing off-

shore renewable energy market. The

Littleport, Cambridgeshire UK factory

provides complete workover control

umbilical and reeler packages to the

majority of deepwater oil and gas

projects worldwide. Service centres in

Houston, Texas, and Bergen, Norway

provide the company’s global service

capability.The Hartlepool facility has two

2,200 tonne carousels allowing the

manufacture of medium voltage sub-

sea and surface power cables for the

offshore renewable energy and oil and

gas markets and their complete offer-

ing of production control umbilicals

used throughout the world in offshore

oil exploration. The expansion will

provide two additional 4,000 tonne

carousels and a Vertical Layup Machine

capable of building the largest offshore

power cables and umbilicals in these

markets.

Pat Herbert, Group CEO of JDR

Cable Systems Holdings, commented:

“The expansion of our operation in

Hartlepool and new factory in Krimpenis designed to triple capacity and

throughput in our major facilities to

meet customer demands”.

“The development of the offshore

renewables industry, combined with

the need to recover more oil and gas

reserves from existing fields, has led

to an increase in demand for highly

specialised subsea power cables and

umbilicals and our customers have led

us to significantly increase our produc-

tive capacity. The site in Hartlepool

was designed specifically to manufac-

ture these products, along with long-

length step-out umbilicals for oil and

gas projects, and the response from

the market has been very positive with

booked orders and an advanced stage

of tendering for many other projects

around the world.”

Patrick Phelan, Managing Director,

JDR Cable Systems Ltd., added that:

“We invested £16million in Phase

1 of Hartlepool and have created a

state-of-the-art factory to producearray cables for offshore wind farms,

and subsea power cables and produc-

tion umbilicals for offshore oil and gas

projects.

“This is very significant because

this factory is Britain’s only purpose-

designed subsea power cable fac-

tory that is located at a deepwater



76

CABLES & INSTALLATION

SUMMER 2010 OFFSHORE WIND ENGINEERING

quayside. From here, we can load out

single products weighing up to 2,200

tonnes each with our current capacity,

growing to 4,000 tonnes by early next

year.”

JDR Cable Systems Ltd. has

driven UK and international growth

from innovation generated at its

Cambridgeshire powerbase - of which

Phelan is incredibly proud.

He says: “Littleport is where the

business was originally established over

30 years ago and is our headquarters

for R & D. From here, we produce

intervention workover umbilical sys-

tems for control of subsea equipment

at up to 10,000 feet water depth.”

Despite its global reach, JDR has

managed to maintain an engineering

presence in the UK. It has teams of

design engineers who work pre-order,

post-order and in R & D, for umbili-cals, power cables, and for the design

of powered reeler systems. These

engineers specialise in these differ-

ent product groups and are based in

Littleport, Hartlepool, and Newcastle

respectively.

Phelan adds that the company’s

graduate development programme

had been key to ensuring a continuous

stream of new talent. “We also have a

team of design engineers in Bangkok,

supporting our factory on the coast of

Thailand,” he says.

In December JDR was awarded

the contract for the supply of subsea

power array cables for the first phase

of London Array Offshore Wind Farm

by the project consortium of DONG

Energy, E.ON and Masdar on the

back of the array cables for Greater

Gabbard offshore wind far and the

25 km export cable for South West

RDA’s WaveHub projec.

The first phase of the London Array

development, consisting of 175 wind

turbines and two offshore substations,

will be installed in water depths of up

to 23m some 20km (12 miles) from

the Kent and Essex coasts in the outer

Thames Estuary. The wind farm will be

connected by subsea export cables to

an onshore substation at Cleve Hill, on

the North Kent coast. From the substa-

tion, the electricity will be fed into the

existing 400kV transmission network.

The scope awarded to JDR includes

the engineering, design and manu-facture of over 200km of 33kV array

cables complete with proprietary hang-

off and termination systems providing

the essential link between individual

wind turbine generators, wind turbine

generator arrays and the offshore sub-

stations. The cables will be produced in

2010 and 2011.

“We set about taking a leading

role in the offshore wind market back

in 2004 when we participated in the

Beatrice Demonstrator project,” says

Phelan. “That was a very small wind

farm with only two turbines linked

back to the Beatrice offshore oil plat-

form, which already had a power cable

running back to shore.

“However, the turbines were the

first 5MW machines to be installed

offshore, and at 50m water depth this

was deep water as far as wind farms

are concerned.

“That experience was vital in pre-

paring ourselves for the technology

required on Round 2, and will also be

relevant to the deepwater locations

required for Round 3.”

Based in Europe’s major technology

cluster, JDR also deserves recognition

as an innovator in its own right.Phelan says: “Innovation is central

to everything we do. From our prod-

uct design, to factory and machinery

design, we are always innovating.

“Offshore oil and gas constantly

presents new challenges and offshore

renewable energy is a whole new

industry. To take a leading role, you

have to lead in terms of innovation,

from factory processes to large scale

system design.

“Our heritage of 30 years of ever-

deeper oil and gas projects has helped

to create the solid foundation of crea-

tive technology that is enabling us to

lead the way in terms of subsea power

cables and umbilical systems for the

entire offshore energy industry.”

For more information on JDR, visit

www.jdrcables.com.

RIGHT Jim Pricefrom the South

West RDA with JDR’s managingdirector Patrick

Phelan

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