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Prysmian’s Offshore Specialties BU is targeting new sources of demand in the umbilical segment

Prysmian’s Offshore Specialties BU is targeting new sources of demand in the umbilical segment

Prysmian’s Offshore Specialties BU is targeting new sources of demand in the umbilical segment

Prysmian’s Offshore Specialties BU is a strategic business unit showing over the last years a growth in excess of 20% year on year, and it is set to further develop the areas of efficient subsea process performances to reduce emissions, as well as to demand for new sources for energy generation. 

The Offshore Specialties BU is an integrated unit with 2 dedicated and 4 shared manufacturing facilities. The Business Unit is operated by a high-level core team of talented, passionate and solution-oriented managers, with strong technical background and experience. Its two fully dedicated plants are located in Brazil, where the BU operates a testing lab and a best-in-class dynamic solutions centre specialised in project design, behaviour modelling and pre-production validation.

“Prysmian’s subsea umbilical solutions, which are designed, prototyped, produced and delivered by the Offshore Specialties Business Unit, are highly engineered products conceived to operate both in static and dynamic submarine applications, and in a wide range of water depths, from shallow to ultra-deep waters. They were first developed to serve the highly specialised oil & gas industry.”

Massimiliano Tomassini

Massimiliano Tomassini

Vice President BU Offshore Specialties, Prysmian

The company’s subsea umbilical solutions portfolio is a highly innovative activity to support the industry drivers towards deeper operating water depths and the increasing demand for subsea electrified processes. Today, this portfolio incorporates a full range of thermoplastic and steel tubes solutions aimed at transmitting power and signals, with optical and hydraulic functions.

Prysmian’s offerings have evolved in hands with the industry, exploring new areas such as subsea gas compression for carbon capture and subsea fluid injection, by increasingly longer “power to shore” dynamic cables that can be used in future energy generation, such as tidal power generation.

The Offshore Specialties portfolio is currently 60%-70% focused on the oil & gas industry, 25%-35% on carbon capture and gas compression, and 5% on niche markets such as tidal energy. 

“For the future we expect those percentages will increase for carbon capture up to 60%,” Tomassini explained.

The development of the cutting-edge technology brought Prysmian into a market leadership position in power and hydraulic umbilical systems thanks to significant investment in development and in production and logistic. With this investment, the company increased the capability in modelling, prototyping and long lengths delivery.

“When an Offshore Energy company works with Prysmian, it benefits from the company’s vertical integration strategy ensuring full control over quality, time and costs of each component of the umbilical cable that Prysmian produces almost fully in-house, such as power, control and optical cables, nylon high pressure hoses, system testing and validation solutions,” Tomassini underlined.

In view of its vast footprint, increasing demand for fibre optic cables for seismic seabed tests, as well as cables for remotely operated underwater vehicles are other growth areas where Tomassini believes that Prysmian has a strategic advantage.