7/3/2022 - GEON Performance Solutions announced that it has acquired Cary Compounds, LLC, which is based in Manalapan, New Jersey, and will see its assets consolidated into Cary manufacturing campuses to best service the geographic needs of its customers.

A press release said that the Cary name has had a good reputation for its quality and high-end formulas dating back to when Ken Cary started the business in 1999. “Charlie Cary and the team have built on that reputation in the wire and cable industry, with exceptional formulary, customer service and manufacturing expertise as its key differentiators,” said GEON CEO Tracy Garrison. “We look forward to using that same personalized service that our Cary customers value as we introduce an expanded portfolio of highly engineered polymer solutions offered by GEON.”

“We have been watching GEON expand and evolve in the marketplace and are pleased the tradition of quality and excellence built by the Cary team will now live on in GEON,” said Charlie Cary. “This is an exciting day for wire and cable manufacturers and our employees who will enjoy a strong competitive advantage with GEON’s strong culture and global leadership position.”

GEON is a global leader in the formulation, development, and manufacture of performance polymer solutions. It has 1,000 global associates and 11 world-class manufacturing plants with headquarters in a western suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. It is a portfolio company of SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm with a disciplined focus on the specialty materials, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals sectors.

7/3/2022 - SubCom’s cable installation vessel, the CS Durable, landed the IRIS Subsea Telecoms Cable System (IRIS) at Thorlakshofn beach in Iceland on May 23.

Per a report at SubCom’s website, the landing signifies the commencement of the marine installation of the IRIS cable system that Farice has been developing since 2019. During the summer months, SubCom’s CS Durable will lay the cable south from Iceland to Galway, Ireland, with final splice and completion of marine work planned for mid-August 2022.

Marine survey of the entire route was done by Farice in 2020 and 2021. SubCom completed the final design, preparation work, and manufacturing of the system during 2021-2022. The cable installation progressed at some 20-200 km per day with burial or surface lay from Iceland to Ireland. The target burial depth of the cable was 1.5 m beneath the seabed in water depth of up to 1,500 m.

Designed as a six-fiber pair trunk with a total system capacity of 108 Tbps (each fiber pair delivers 18Tbs), IRIS will be approximately 1,700 km in length and connect southwest of Iceland to Ballyloughane Strand in Galway, Ireland. The cable was made at SubCom’s plant in Newington, New Hampshire.

The IRIS system will be ready for service in the beginning of 2023. It will be the third submarine fiber optic cable system connecting Iceland with Europe, providing further redundancy in telecom connection, with low latency connections around 10.5 ms, between Reykjavík and Dublin.

Farice, a connectivity provider owned by the Icelandic Government, owns and operates two submarine cable systems that connect Iceland to Europe: FARICE-1 and DANICE. The newest cable system will improve the diversity of adequate connections to support the continued growth of Iceland’s modern community and international business environment.

7/3/2022 - Last year, JDR announced plans to build a new high-voltage U.K. cable plant subject to final agreements. That path just got a lot closer to completion when the project was approved by councilors on the Strategic Planning Committee of the Northumberland County Council (NCC).

A press release said that NCC Deputy Council Leader Richard Wearmouth reported that the project has its full support. “We’re absolutely delighted to be welcoming one of the most advanced subsea cable manufacturing facilities in the world into the county. This brand-new facility will focus on renewable energy products and services, which is crucial towards the county’s carbon neutral plans.”

Plans call for construction to begin this year, with the opening set for 2024. It will create up to 207 high-quality local jobs on completion and safeguard 270 jobs at JDR’s existing facilities. Part of the initial project investment, estimated at £130 million, will come from a grant from the BEIS Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Support (OWMIS) scheme. JDR and TFK plans to raise the remaining funding with support expected from financial institutions and U.K. Export Finance.

The new facility is the first stage of JDR’s plans to expand its product portfolio to support the growing global renewable energy market, adding high-voltage export and long length array cables to its existing capacity and product capabilities. Further stages of the development could result in over 400 staff working at the site, with supplied products complementing JDR’s existing capacity provided by the company’s Hartlepool and Littleport U.K. manufacturing centers.

When complete, the facility will include a new catenary continuous vulcanization (CCV) line, making it the only facility in the U.K. capable of full start-to-finish manufacturing of high voltage subsea cables for offshore wind farms to support the growing global renewable energy market. It will be located on the 16-hectare site of the former coal-fired Blyth power station in Cambois in the northeast of England. It is set to feature a 47.5-m high vertical laying-up machine tower and a 45-m high CVC tower along with cable testing and storage facilities. Construction is due to start in the third quarter of this year and finish in early 2024.

7/3/2022 -  Etihad Etisalat Company (Mobily) has signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Telecom Egypt to build the first submarine cable system to directly connect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Egypt.

Per multiple media reports, the MoU was signed in Riyadh by Eng. Salman Al-Badran, CEO of Mobily, and Adel Hamed, Managing Director, and CEO of Telecom Egypt. The agreement explores various new ways to connect international capacity to Europe in the west, through Telecom Egypt’s network, and to the GCC in the east, through Mobily’s network, which is made possible by expanding the two companies’ networks and connecting them to neighboring countries.

The new cable system aims to meet the rising communication traffic and the large demand for such services between KSA and Egypt.

“By adopting cutting-edge technologies, we continue to expand our infrastructure and scale our capabilities across the KSA and the wider region,” said Salman Al-Badran, CEO of Mobily. “We are confident that our strategic partnership with Telecom Egypt will help achieve our goals.”

The investment allows Prysmian to rapidly transition the Jackson plant to optical cable and increase the production efficiency in other facilities across the region. Prysmian Group North America has 28 manufacturing facilities, eight distribution centers and six R&D centers. The investment also will enable digital inclusion in local communities across North America while supporting the needs of Prysmian’s customers.