Pilbara cable competition heats up

Telstra has won a contract to build a 500-kilometre subsea telecommunications cable for Chevron in an effort to improve communications across the company’s projects in the state's north-west.

The deal will involve Telstra managing construction and maintenance of the cable leading from its existing cables in the Pilbara.

Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone gas projects will be the first to connect to the cable when it’s completed in 2016, with more projects likely to be added in the future.

Telstra was unable to disclose the construction cost of the project or terms of continued maintenance of the cable once completed. It’s understood Chevron will be the sole investor and owner of the cable.

The deal comes six months after the Nextgen Group announced a deal to build a $120 million cable linking to two other gas projects off the north-west coast.

The first phase of completion is also expected in 2016.

The project is a collaboration between Nextgen, Shell and Inpex with the latter two sharing the capital cost of the cable, which would link to their Prelude and Ichthys projects off the Kimberley coast.

Under that deal, Shell and Inpex were to be the cornerstone clients for capacity on the cable, however it was expected other operators would be able to buy capacity on the cable.

The two deals come despite Sydney-based technology company Trident pursuing a proposal to build its own subsea telecommunications cable in the Pilbara.

The company is planning a $400 million subsea cable from Perth to Singapore with an additional subsea connection from Onslow.

It received commitments of $320 million from the Beijing Construction and Engineering Group and has been pursuing additional investment of $80 million.