Vocus connects Ichthys, Prelude to North-West Cable System

Vocus Group, an Australian telecommunications company, has connected its high-speed fiber-optic North-West Cable System (NWCS) to the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG Project and Shell’s Prelude FLNG located off the northwest coast of Australia.

Vocus said that the North-West Cable System, recently constructed by Vocus in partnership with Shell and INPEX, comprises 2,100 kilometers of submarine cable between Darwin to Port Hedland.

The system can deliver speeds of up to 40 gigabytes per second to both facilities and, according to Vocus, serves to increase the reach and resiliency of the company’s network in Australia.

The company added that the NWCS was designed to enable high-speed data connections to other key hydrocarbon prospects along the cable route.

Geoff Horth, CEO of Vocus Group, said: “Connection of these services isn’t just an important milestone for Vocus, it’s an improvement to the essential telco services in an often-neglected part of Australia and a fast and secure connection to families and teams for the fly-in-fly-out crew on these platforms.”

“Not only is this initiative strengthening the safe operations of the Inpex-led Ichthys LNG project’s offshore facilities – it is also delivering immediate benefits to our teams and the Northern Territory and Western Australia communities connected to the cable,” said Louis Bon, managing director of the Ichthys project.

David Bird, VP of Prelude, added: “The NWCS will improve the collaboration of our onshore and offshore teams during the commissioning and operation of Prelude, and importantly, will transform the offshore experience for our offshore teams ensuring they are well connected to home and family.”

Ichthys and Prelude

The Ichthys LNG Project is located in the Ichthys Field within the northern Browse Basin about 220 kilometers north-west of Western Australia’s Kimberley coast, at the western edge of the Timor Sea.

During operations, the Ichthys LNG Project is expected to produce up to 8.9 million tonnes of LNG and up to 1.6 million tonnes of LPG per annum and 100,000 barrels of condensate per day at peak, requiring an 890-kilometer pipeline to facilitate export.

Prelude is the first deployment of Shell’s FLNG technology that will see a 488-meter-long floating facility extracting and liquefying gas at sea before it is exported to customers around the globe. The project is located approximately 475km north-northeast of Broome in Western Australia.