Penta Ocean Orders The World’s Biggest & Most Advanced Cable Laying Vessel

Penta-Ocean Construction has signed a contract with Singapoe’s PaxOcean Group for constructing what the company calls, ‘the world’s biggest and most advanced cable laying vessel’.

It would cost $243 million and will be constructed at the Batam yard, with its hull costing ¥31bn and the trencher and work-class ROV costing around ¥5.5bn, per the announcement by Penta-Ocean.

The 14,000 DWT cable layer will be designed by Norwegian company, Salt Ship Design and will be classed by ClassNK.

It will lay and bury cables for bottom-fixed offshore wind turbines, floating-type offshore wind turbines and submarine direct current power transmission cables.

A prominent name in marine engineering, Penta Ocean has been investing in constructing ships for offshore wind construction including offshore installation vessels to boost offshore wind power supply in Japan.

The company said that it wants to construct this cable layer so it can expand beyond offshore wind turbine construction to power cable installation and target offshore wind power projects in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone and other regions.

The cable layer will be self-propelled and will have two 5000-tonne cable carousels or cable storage, enabling safe cable laying operations in severe metocean conditions.

The vessel will have a trencher for burying cables and a work-class ROV to carry out the cable burial operations effectively. The vessel’s delivery is scheduled in February 2028 and it will enter into active service from 2029.

The cable layer will be 50/50 owned by a company subsidiary and Fuyo General Lease Co, while the trencher and work class ROV will be 65/35 owned by a company subsidiary and Kojimagumi Co, a Japanese dredger company which will also handle the cable layer’s operational management.

References: Ocean Energy Resources, Clean Shipping International

Source: Maritime Shipping News