Prysmian to strengthen its offer for marine and offshore application

Seaflame™, a new range of ultra fire-resistant cables with enhanced performance for specialist situations.

Milan, 16 July 2013 – Prysmian Group, world leader in the energy and telecom cables and systems industry, has strengthened its product offer to deliver new levels of performance and safety for the world’s leading marine businesses, both in shipboard and offshore applications with Seaflame^TM, a new and innovative full range of ultra fire-resistant power, control and instrumentation cables. Recently presented at OTC in Houston, TX and OGA in Kuala Lumpur, Seaflame^TM has raised the interest of many visitors at both exhibitions.

“We have further broadened our portfolio with a product family that ensures enhanced performance for specialist situations” - remarks Fabio Romeo Executive Vice President Energy Business –. “We are proud of having developed Seaflame^TM, a product that does not only meet but also exceeds the most rigorous international testing standards“. Continuous research and development of highly specialized fire resistant cables, designed to withstand and remain operational in the event of fire both for the shipbuilding and for the oil and gas offshore industry have taken Prysmian to develop new products that support its customers to comply with the ever more stringent regulatory demands, most importantly SOLAS’ Safe Return to Port.

As a matter of fact, cable systems are an integral component of all power geared and power feeding systems and they must always remain operational including in the event of an onboard fire – no matter how severe the fire or surrounding conditions – to guarantee operation and safe return to port of all vessels. Ultra fire resistance and ultra-high performance guarantee operation in the case of fire and deliver the standard our customers rely on in challenging environments. Seaflame^TM represents also Prysmian’s innovative interpretation of the shipbuilding industry requirements in terms of electrical components and cables as it does not require installation in metallic ducts to protect them from water spraying or jetting and related mechanical shocks, which is the traditional solution currently offered by the cable industry.

At Prysmian we are acutely aware of the need for our customers to always keep in mind the risks associated with an outbreak of fire”, explains Stefano Bulletti, CEO of Prysmian Group in Italy. With Seaflame™ we guarantee our customers in the ship building and design industry that equivalent or reduced weights and dimensions, compared to similar solutions available on the market, correspond to better performances for higher safety. If we take into account that a ship can be equipped with up to 1500 tons of cables, we strongly believe that with our Seaflame™ we can offer a solution that can provide remarkable benefits in the optimization of the total cost of ownership for ship builders and designers”.

Developed by Prysmian's Engineering and Product Development team, Seaflame^TM combines every technical feature and design requirement to meet and exceed the most rigorous and stringent fire resistance testing standards, including mechanical shock and water simulations. The applied testing protocol required that all tests were performed on same single cable lengths. Withstood temperature reached 1050 °C over a period of 180 to 360 minutes with mechanical shock applied every 5 minutes, water spraying and water jetting. Seaflame^TM is a fully industrialised and patented product and has already received approval by all major classification bodies such as Lloyds Register, RIINA, etc.