The Italian offshore cable manufacturer Prysmian has signed a contract with Marinus Link for the construction of an undersea power line.
It will connect the Australian state of Victoria with Tasmania. The contract is worth €600m and work is expected to begin by August 2025. The cables will be a total of 345 km long – 255 km of which will run under the sea in the Bass Strait and a further 90 km underground in Victoria. The project is scheduled for completion in 2030.
Prysmian uses hybrid cable-layer
The power cables will be laid using the “Leonardo da Vinci” cable-laying vessel built by Vard. The 170-metre-long hybrid vessel has two carousels with capacities of 7,000 and 10,000 tons and can lay cables up to 3,000 metres deep.
The project is intended to facilitate the flow of electricity and telecommunications between the mainland and the island of Tasmania. Its capacity in the first phase is 750 MW.
Prysmian, which is traded on the Italian stock exchange, is the largest cable manufacturer in the world. With an annual turnover of around €15.3bn, it employs around 30,000 people.
