Prysmian Group has been awarded a contract for a ±500 kV HVDC submarine and land cable system to create an interconnection between Egypt and Saudi Arabia worth around €221 million. The project was awarded by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) and the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC). The new link will facilitate the strategic exchange of energy between the two countries and will connect the Gulf Co-operation Council countries with the African continent. Signature of the contract is expected to take place early this month.
The project involves the design, supply, installation and commissioning of around 127.5 km of HVDC ±500kV mass impregnated submarine single-core cabling, 43.5 km of 36 kV XLPE submarine single-core cable with double-wire
armouring, and 61 km of MINISUB submarine fibre optic cables for telecommunications and distributed temperature sensing monitoring (DTS). This wider interconnection will transport electricity between the Badr substation in Cairo, and the Madinah East substation in Saudi Arabia. The cable route will cross the Gulf of Aqaba, spanning the territorial waters of Egypt and Saudi Arabia with a route length of approximately 20 km and deep-water installation at around 1,000 m, in addition to sections of underground land cables between the landfall and the transition stations located on each side. The delivery and commissioning of these project are scheduled for 2024.
Offshore installation operations will be carried out by Prysmian’s cable-laying vessels suitable for deep-water cable-laying operations.
