TAT-14, which is a consortium transatlantic cable system that entered service in 2001, is being decommissioned and removed.
Commercial service on the TAT-14 system ended in December 2020.
Subsea Environmental Services and Red Penguin Associates (advisors) have been awarded the contract to decommission TAT-14. This includes removal and recycling of shore-ends in the US, UK, France, Denmark and The Netherlands as well as the deep-water segments in the North Atlantic.
After a year of planning, the operations phase of the project got underway last week with the recovery of shore-ends in Denmark and The Netherlands. Completion of all in-shore works is anticipated by year-end 2021.
John Theodoracopulos, (Subsea MD) commented: ‘the scope of this project presents an exciting opportunity for all stakeholders to participate in the notable benefits associated with the decommissioning of TAT-14. Red Penguin have been an excellent partner and we look forward to continuing to work closely together.
- TAT-14 used four pairs of fibres—two pairs as active and two as backup. Each fibre in each pair carried 16 wavelengths in one direction, and each wavelength carried up to an STM-256. The entire system extended 15,428 km (9,587 mi).
- Since commencing marine operations in 2014, Subsea Environmental Services has completed 16 decommissioning projects in the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean, recovering over 22,000 kilometers of OOS cable (36,000 metric tons) from the ocean floor.