WCA July 2012

Industry news

Bahra Cables’ $66m contract

Bahra Cables Ltd, a cable manufacturing company in Saudi Arabia, has signed a contact worth over $66 million with Saudi Bin Laden Group to supply electrical cables for the Shamiya project, part of a government project to develop the areas around the Makkah Haram. Saudi Bin Laden Group has been assigned all the site development and expansion work, beginning with infrastructure upgrading. Engineer Talal Idriss, CEO of Bahra Cables Ltd Co, said the company will supply fire-resistant low and medium voltage cables that emit limited smoke and no halogen when exposed to flame. Bahra Cables holds many accreditation certificates such as KEMA, IPH, SASO, LPCB, CSA and BASEC, among others, in recognition of the quality of its products. The company is also ISO 9001: 2008 certified for its range of medium and high pressure cables up to 132kV, and is the first Saudi cable company to receive ISO 14001: 2004 and OHSAS certifications. New subsea cable for west Africa Bahra Cables – Saudi Arabia Website : www.bahra-cables.com

supplier, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks. This entails signing off the final contractual agreements.

The 14,000km West African Cable System (WACS), the first new subsea telecommunications cable on Africa’s west coast since Sat-3 was launched 11 years ago, was officially launched in May. Angus Hay, co-chair of the WACS management committee and chief technology officer at Neotel, says testing of WACS has progressed well and that the system was “essentially ready” for commercial service. An official launch function took place at Yzerfontein, the site of the cable’s South African landing north of Cape Town. Commercial traffic should begin flowing across the system at the same time or shortly thereafter, promising to put further downward pressure on broadband prices in South Africa. The cable, which has a design capacity of 5.1Tbit/s and has cost $600m to build, will probably have in the region of 400Gbit/s of capacity when it becomes available for commercial service — more than the total design capacity of the older Sat-3 cable at 340Gbit/s. Mr Hay says the WACS management committee is in the process of “accepting” the cable from the

WACS – South Africa Website : www.wacscable.com

Fujikura acquires Nistica Japanese wire and cable manufacturer Fujikura has acquired Nistica. The acquisition will complement its portfolio of optical fibres, cables and optical devices. Among the products that Nistica offers are its Full Fledge series of wavelength selective switches (WSS). Fujikura has invested in Nistica since 2007. As part of the purchase agreement, Fujikura will acquire the remaining shares in Nistica and the company will become a Fujikura subsidiary. NTT Electronics will maintain its share in the company.

Fujikura – Japan Website : www.fujikura.com

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Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2012