The Vocus Subsea Cable Serving Ichthys and Prelude Is Live

Vocus Group Limited announced the successful connection of its high-speed fiber-optic North-West Cable System (NWCS), to the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG Project and Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility located off the north-west coast of Australia.

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 Gb/s to both INPEX and Shell facilities and serves to increase the reach and resiliency of the Vocus Australian telecommunications network. The NWCS has been designed to enable high speed data connections to other key hydrocarbon prospects along the cable route.

“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, ” said Geoff Horth, Vocus CEO.

“INPEX is proud of the close industry collaboration that enabled this cutting-edge communications system to be put in place. 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 Ichthys Project.

“Shell is extremely pleased of the partnership with Vocus and INPEX. 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,” said David Bird, VP Prelude.