The team has been very busy in recent weeks! 

The HDD and OSP drilling works from the CLS seawards, are both keeping to their respective schedules, despite the minor setbacks.  All of the drilling will be completed by the end of 2008 in preparation of the submarine cable haul.

The Sydney Cable Landing Station is now hosting customer equipment as further installations continue.

The Madang Cable Landing Station and land duct are both nearing completion. 

Manufacturing of the PPC-1 cable and equipment is at an advanced stage with the factory acceptance testing currently underway.  The equipment is still on track for shipping to the respective destinations in the coming months.

All aspects of the project are receiving positive outcomes.

During their travels, visits and meetings, the PIPE team have taken loads of photos.  Check out the recent photos of the project, which have been uploaded to the Photo Gallery of all of the above.

PIPE welcomes the feedback by our readers.  If there is any subject which has not been covered, tell us and we will do our best to include it in future blog posts! 

The Closed Circuit TV cameras form an integral part of the Cable Landing Station's security, coveríng all areas of the facility.  All doorways, building approaches, cabinet rows and common infrastructure are monitored 24x7 using motion sensitive, infra-red cameras.  All the cameras are IP66 rated and are tamper-proof. Footage from the cameras is captured and retained by digital video recorders.

PIPE staff are able to remotely view the CCTV footage using the Building's communications network.

The OSP work is progressing well as they make their way from the CLS to the BMH. To ensure smooth operations with the minimum of disturbance to the area, the OSP team are using a bed borer. The bed borer is able to work in tighter confines than a conventional HDD and is perfect for road crossings. The OSP team will be carrying out the longer drill shots with the HDD rig that will join up the road crossings created by the bed borer to produce one continuous duct between the CLS and the BMH.

This week, the HDD in Sydney had to overcome the breaking of the locating wireline.

The wireline is used to transmit information through a cable, fitted within the drill string. The transmitter, located behind the bore head registers angle, rotation, direction and temperature data. At the surface, the signals from the transmitter are decoded and steering directions are relayed to the bore machine operator.

The wireline was withdrawn and repaired. The drill string was put back down the hole to allow drilling operations to continue.

The delay has caused only a slight setback of a few days at the HDD site.

By early February 2009, the cable laying ships will begin their preparations for sailing to the Hitachi Works in Minato for the loading of the cable.

Lay 1 (4,700 km) will be conducted by the CS Tyco Reliance and Lay 2 (2,200km) by the CS Tyco Decisive.  The first lay will install the cable from Sydney to a position some 85 km just north of  BU4.  The second load of 2,200km commencing end March  will be laid from Guam south to meet up with the CS Reliance laying Northwards which will conduct the final splice.

To date over 6000 kilometres of cable has been manufactured and is ready for the repeater coupling.

Before the submerged plant is loaded onto the main laying vessels it undergoes a number of optical and electrical tests to ensure that the overall system performance will be achieved.  Repeaters have started to arrive in the cable factory in Hitachi in preparation for them being coupled into the already manufactured cable. 

Each repeater is tested prior to shipment for overall optical performance and fitted with an impacto-graph.  This device records shock and vibration that the repeater experiences during the shipment from the USA to Japan.  Upon arrival, a goods inwards optical test is conducted prior to the unit being coupled into the cable and the impacto-graph is checked for any out of tolerance shocks.

If any non conformance is detected then this is assessed by engineering staff and rework may be required or the unit may be passed as fit for use.

The cable is tested for optical loss, chromatic dispersion, PMD and electrically for: insulation resistance, capacitance and linear resistance of the power conductor .  The LW cable for example, is covered with an approximately 4mm thick layer of medium density polyethylene.  This forms an insulating barrier between the central power conductor and the seawater and must be completely free of voids/inclusions or any other form of damage that would reduce the design thickness of polyethylene remaining in situ.  This is critical to ensure the cable can withstand the HV DC powering voltages during the design life of the system.

We will discuss more on the testing procedures as we progress during the next few weeks.

PIPE's John and Robin are on route to the Tyco factory in the US for the next two weeks, performing Factory Acceptance Tests on the station equipment's software and hardware.  Once these tests are completed successfully, the SLTE and PFE equipment will ship to each of the Cable Landing Stations for installation. 

Acceptance testing generally involves running a suite of tests on each sub system (in this case the PFE and SLTE).  Each individual test, known as a case, exercises a particular operating conditionof the equipment and will result in a pass or fail outcome.

Last week, the Brisbane PIPE team visited the Sydney CLS to install and test the remote management equipment to provide complete visibility of the building and the submarine cable itself. This is an additional protection measure on top of the staff that will be based in the building.

The installed equipment terminates the local fibre circuits and provides remote management/control of the facility, including monitoring of the environmental systems, security systems and the submarine equipment itself. These are key features to ensure that the entire system runs smoothly 24/7.

The setup in Sydney will be replicated in all our other sites to ensure that the NOC has an aggregated view of the entire system from 1 location.

Work at the Sydney CLS continues this week, with the delivery of the DC battery equipment for the Submarine plant. Once installed, the DC battery system will provide 4 hours of runtime in the event of a mains power failure.

The delivery and subsequent installation is well ahead of our requirements for preparation of the building for the Submarine Terminal Line Equipment (SLTE) and Power Feed Equipment arrival and installation in January.  

The DC equipment provides the power for the entire cable system, including the branching units and repeaters on the seabed. It is matched by another set of equipment in Guam.

The HDD is making solid progress having now reached a length of 656m from the Beach Manhole.  The existing hole is being enlarged from 9 7/8" to 12 1/8" to assist the mud return with cuttings.

The reaming process should  see the drill back on the bottom of hole tomorrow.