Subsea Cable Asset Management & Reliability Forum

Thinus du Plessis is an electrical engineer with 13 years’ experience in power cable systems. He is employed since 2 January 2019 as Cable systems senior consultant in DNV GL, performing projects for both AC and DC, and land and submarine cable systems. As senior consultant in DNV GL, one of his key cable system related project responsibilities  include the function of: Project manager and technical expert for the Dutch government co-funded Joint Industry Project on Submarine Cable Lifetime Monitoring (which included a combined failure root cause analysis of failures experienced on submarine cable systems).

 Kevin is a geological oceanographer with over 15 years commercial and 15 years of research experience, principally in the area of coastal sediment transport and seabed processes. He is one of the UK’s leading experts in coastal and shelf sea oceanography, with extensive field experience and over 40 peer reviewed publications. He is co-founder and owner of Partrac Ltd, a marine survey and consulting firm specialising in oceanographic, environmental and marine geosciences survey and consultancy, who work with various clients on projects in offshore wind, wave and tidal energy, water industry, and oil and gas. He is the Technical Director and is  responsible for a wide range of functions including QHSE, commercial strategy, marketing and business development, project management, provision of technical advice and quality control on company outputs and deliverables. 

Andrew Norris ACII, BSc (Hons), CEng, FIMechE

Director of Lloyd Warwick International (London). Areas of expertise include renewable energy (particularly offshore wind and submarine power cables).

Andrew is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Insurer with over 20 years’ experience in loss adjusting, underwriting, claims management and risk surveying. A founder and former chairman of the European Wind Turbine Committee, he also chaired the Oil, Petrochemical and Energy Risks Association (OPERA) and is a member of the Offshore Engineering Society. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and holds an Advanced Diploma in Insurance.

In his early career, Andrew worked in the mining industry, but in a subsequent career move, gained a commission in the Royal Navy, serving as an engineering officer at sea and ashore.

On completion of his naval career, Andrew entered the insurance industry and subsequently moved to London in 2000, to work as an international energy loss adjuster. In 2007, he joined a Lloyd’s syndicate, as their senior risk engineer and claims adjuster.

Building on this, he took up a position as a senior engineering underwriter with one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies where he quickly established a reputation as one of the market’s leading underwriters of offshore wind and submarine cable risks.

In this capacity, his portfolio included the first commercial scale array of floating turbines, the first offshore deployment of 8MW+ turbines and the introduction of the first 66kV cable array. He was involved in all early Taiwanese offshore wind projects and in China, helped introduce marine warranty clauses as a pre-requisite for project insurance. In Japan, he insured the Fukushima III floating turbine and insured cable interconnector projects in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.

Andrew is a regular speaker at conferences and has contributed to many market initiatives including:

• Offshore Engineering Society - Offshore wind and natural catastrophe risk: an insurance perspective, July 2020.
• The International Machinery Insurers Association paper on battery energy storage systems, published 2019.
• The Society of Construction Law – presentation on offshore wind, London, 2019.
• Speaker at the 5th Annual Offshore Power Cable Engineering and Reliability conference, Amsterdam, 2019.
• Expert view: the future of renewable energy – Strategic Risk publication, 2018.
• Renewable energy investment – Strategic Risk publication, 2018.
• Innovation and Challenges in Offshore Wind, WTW China Renewable Energy Conference 2018, Hangzhou, China.
• Seeking Sustainability – creative risk management and insurance solutions, FERMA 2017, Monaco.

Roel Vanthillo is an industrial engineer and has extensive experience in the offshore wind industry. Prior to joining Fluves in 2015, he worked for DEME, Cofely Fabricom and Egemin. At DEME Roel took part in the construction of the very first Belgian wind farm C-Power. At Cofely Fabricom he was involved in Belwind (Belgium), Amrumbank-West (Germany) and Butendiek (Germany) as project manager for the low voltage systems of offshore substations. Roel has a broad knowledge of offshore monitoring techniques and the requirements such systems demand.

Roel holds an Executive MBA from Vlerick Business School and is CEO of Marlinks (joint venture between Fluves & Parkwind).

Johnny is appointed as Cable System Specialist and Project Manager within Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. He is responsible for future oriented cable solutions, with the aim of significantly reducing Levelized Cost of Energy in offshore wind farms. He graduated as Mechanical Technician in Aars Technical school 2006 working with mechanical system and structural project gaining hands-on experience in problem solving and onsite innovation. After this he graduated as Mechanical Engineer from the VIA University College Horsens. In 2011 he joined Siemens Wind Power as a Mechanical Engineer in Research & Development working with turbine blades as Technical Project Manager. In 2013 he moved to the Offshore Product Lifecycle Management, where he was part of a team, that developed a new offshore array cable system. In 2014 he is part of the Offshore Concepts & Solutions team, where he is working with new offshore grid optimization. Optimization on offshore substations and part of the development of the Offshore Substation Modules, integrating substation technology on existing turbine foundations. In 2017 Package Manager on Nissum Bredning windfarm in Denmark with 7 new develop innovation, witch where to be implemented and installed with great success. Full project scope, interface with responsible authorities to gain needed permit and approvals, site layout, planning, procurement, contractor for offshore works including offshore Horizontal directional drilling, contract negotiations. Project manager on various offshore turbine development project. Offshore installation experience as installation manager. Electrical Package Manager responsible for grid connection full scope including offshore installation to Nissum Bredning project with furthered SGRE develop cable in pipe solutions. Since 2018 in part of Innovation Balance of Plant department managing various new grid access projects.

Steven Rossiter is Chief Technology Officer at Tekmar Group plc. The group companies work together to provide technology and services to the global offshore energy markets. His role includes responsibility for establishing and maintaining group-wide ICT systems including business intelligence and collaboration and he leads the software and data part of Tekmar Group, AgileDat, which architects and builds cloud-based systems for managing data and processing in engineering businesses.

Prior to this founded and served as Managing Director of AgileTek Engineering Limited which became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tekmar Group plc upon the IPO in 2018 . Steven is still responsible for the strategic direction of the consulting part of Tekmar Group as well as group-wide R&D initiatives.

A Chartered Marine Engineer with LOC London, Mike is a qualified Chief Engineer who has been working in the renewable sector at LOC for over thirteen years. His experience at LOC includes MWS and consultancy for high voltage export and array cables, HVDC Interconnector cable installation and repair, wind turbine and foundation installation, investigations of subsea cable damage. He is also active as MWS for cable replacement and repair campaigns on several OWF. He has also conducted equipment failure investigations for P&I and H&M interests on a variety failures such as main and auxiliary engines, steering systems and deck machinery, fire damage and vessel repair and has produced expert reports and acted as expert witness for arbitration. He is a qualified ISM/ISO 9000 lead auditor and has completed an MSc in Engineering and Management based around the ISM Code and safety management. He has advised and worked on numerous Offshore Windfarm cable installations and cable repairs as MWS and as a consultant, and has also conducted due diligence for the marine aspects for OFTO bids for transmission assets.

Daniele is a Project Management professional and subsea cable specialist with 15 years of experience in the marine and offshore field ranging from marine operations, shipbuilding, and offshore installation of HV submarine cables.

In recent years he has specialised in subsea cable installation, being involved in several offshore installation campaigns on board Cable Lay vessels across Europe.

Among other projects, Daniele was involved in the method statement development and installation of the Cobra cable Interconnector, the North Sea Link cable project, the CWA project, and the Western link cable repair operations.

Daniele is currently a Subsea Cable Project Manager at OWC (an Aqualis Braemar Company) and he has been recently involved in feasibility studies and route engineering optimisation for several Round 4 offshore wind projects and Submarine Cable Package Management for floating offshore wind projects in the UK.

Daniele is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Member of RINA (AMRINA).

Alex Gauntt is the Commercial Director for Irish Sea Contractors, an innovative Irish underwater engineering specialist with the patented AERSUBTM in-situ subsea power cable repair solution. Alex has been involved in the development, planning and construction of renewable energy projects since 2005 with a focus on the subsea cable industry since 2011.

Roberto has been working in the offshore industry for more than 10 years. In the last six years he has specialised in subsea cable installation studies, working on more than 40 different subsea cable installation campaign. He had the opportunity  to deal with major installation contractors, cable and protection system manufacturers and Marine Warranty Surveyors.

He is currently a Engineering Manager at Longitude Consulting Engineers (LOC Group) where he is leading the cable installation team, having a major role in developing cable installation analysis procedures and their continuous improvement and optimisation.

Roberto is a chartered Naval Architect (CEng) and Member of RINA (MRINA).

Pieter Wijnmaalen is Commercial Manager at Boskalis Subsea Cables.

Graduated from Higher Technical College Utrecht in 1992, he gained international experience on large infrastructural and marine projects for Boskalis in (a.o.) Nigeria, Namibia, United Kingdom, China and in the Netherlands. After having received a MBA title he started working as a contract- and project management consultant for a Dutch Engineering company. From September 1st 2014, Pieter is working at Boskalis Subsea Cables (formerly know as VBMS): an international subsea cable installation contractor.

Among other projects, Pieter Was involved in the Borssele Export cable project, the Ostwind 2 export cable project and the East Anglia One Inter Array cable project.

Primary responsibilities at Boskalis are managing complex EPC tenders, strategic account manager and develop commercial strategies. 

Chas is Operations Director at Peritus International, a specialist subsea engineering consultancy. He has experience with a wide range of subsea cable projects covering both offshore wind and oil and gas. He is also experienced in subsea pipeline design, having been involved in the design of some of the world’s deepest pipelines at over 3000m.  He holds a Ph.D in Materials Science and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. He is a Fellow of the institute of Marine Engineers.

Sean Kelly is a founder of Transmission Excellence Ltd, which undertakes innovation and cost-reduction work within the offshore transmission sector.

Prior to this Sean was a founder and technical director of Transmission Capital Partners, an offshore transmission owner (OFTO) which owns the cables to multiple British offshore wind farms; and prior to that we was in charge of international interconnector development within the British TSO National Grid. From 2015 to 2019 he chaired the OWPB Grid Group, part of the Offshore Wind Programme Board – an initiative between the UK offshore wind industry and the UK government which aims to accelerate the development of offshore wind

Michael Brooks is Senior Executive at 4COffshore, London:
With 35 years diverse experience, he brings a deep understanding of the engineering complexities needed to achieve successful delivery of subsea pipeline and cable infrastructure installation: he is a leading advocate of the importance of subsea cable asset risk mitigation objectives to secure long term operational performance to effect balance sheet protection / investor confidence: this is a key thrust of 4C's mandate. In addition to the position at 4C, other key roles include;
CEO Risk Panel Limited (London)
Senior Vice President Oceanteam Shipping (Oslo)
Director Oceanroutes Mobell  (Swire Group, London)

Head of PowerLink Cable Solution

Saul has 28 years of global sales and marketing leadership experience in technology, telecoms and semiconductor markets launching disruptive new technologies like Bluetooth, Skype, SSD storage. For the last four years Saul has been applying this knowledge to help Synaptec launch a new monitoring technology called DES (Distributed Electrical Sensing) which combines the best of telecoms, hardware and software systems to radically reduce power system management costs. With DES networks already delivering capital and operational cost savings of £millions to transmission operators around Europe, Saul has now led Synaptec through the initial demonstrations to the first large scale deployment of this new technology in offshore wind.

Shimeng joined Wood Mackenzie in 2018 as an Offshore Senior Research Analyst. She is based in our London office and is responsible for the global offshore wind market research including supply chain, asset ownership, operation and maintenance, and cost assessment. Her particular expertise is in global offshore wind cost assessment and operational and maintenance strategy.

Before joining Wood Mackenzie, Shimeng spent 5 years at Wood Group Clean Energy Sector, where she led and supported over 10GW of onshore and offshore wind power advisory projects and more than 50 technical due diligence assignments for large-scale wind project financing, refinancing and acquisition. She gained in-depth expertise in wind project management, project evaluation, construction and operational contract review, operational and maintenance strategy assessment.

Charlotte joined ORE Catapult in January 2018 as a Graduate Electrical Engineer after completing her BEng Hons in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. In her current role, Charlotte is actively involved in the delivery of a number of projects in different disciplines within the electrical infrastructure team.

Since joining ORE Catapult, Charlotte has assumed the role of primary lead on the development of the cable management tool as part of the O&M Centre of Excellence programme and now is the primary lead on the ELECTRODE project

Jakub is active in Service Product Management at NKT. In his role, Jakub is responsible for the product portfolio of NKT's Service Business Line covering both the offshore and onshore power cable segments. His primary focus is leveraging NKT's extensive HV cable experience to identify solutions for cable owners' and cable operators' needs as well as leading implementation teams to develop these solutions into products. Prior to transitioning to the Service Business Line, Jakub was a member of NKT's in-house Strategy Department where he supported numerous projects across the company's Business Lines, most notably shaping the Service Business Line's strategy. Before joining NKT, Jakub worked as a Management Consultant in Bain & Company's Brussels office and obtained a Master of Science degree in Energy Engineering from the KU Leuven and Grenoble INP.

Victoria Phillips is Associate Director of RPS’ Explosives Engineering Services; Victoria has been working in the UXO Industry for 15 years and currently manages all of RPS’ survey and marine related UXO Consultancy and operations. She has extensive experience of managing and mitigating UXO risk in various areas of the globe and is a UXO Subject Matter Expert to a number of large energy concerns including BP and ExxonMobil.

Mark FINCH, Managing Director & Principal Geotechnical Engineer, Ternan Energy

Mark Finch is a Chartered Engineer with more than 30 years’ experience of geotechnical engineering and installation analyses in the marine renewable energy, offshore oil and gas and subsea cables sectors. Mark is a recognised Technical Authority in the definition and management of seabed risk and the installation of offshore facilities. Mark lived and worked in London, Congo and Paris before settling in Scotland in 1996. He has worked for a broad range of organisations from site investigation and EPCI contractors to Operators and Developers. Mark established his first consultancy, ISIS Energy, in 2004 which was subsequently acquired by Lloyds Register in 2008. In 2016 he established Ternan Energy – an independent geoscience consultancy. In three years Ternan has grown to 10 employees and numerous Associates and has offices in Aberdeen and south of London. Mark regularly acts as an Expert Witness in high-value technical disputes and advises Clients across the globe.

Etienne Rochat received a master degree of engineering from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL, Lausanne) and a PhD in science from the University of Neuchâtel. Prior to working for OMNISENS, Etienne worked as research scientist at ABB Corporate Research Centre (Switzerland), developing fibre sensors for remote pressure and temperature measurement in oil reservoir, then as research fellow at the University of Essex (UK) in non-conventional optical communication.

Etienne Rochat joined OMNISENS in 2004 and worked originally as product manager for the company former trace gas analyser. In 2009, he became R&D manager for fibre optic distributed sensing, then head of engineering in 2010 and CTO in 2013. As such, he is in charge of product research & development for the company monitoring solution, focusing on optical interrogators, sensing cables and novel applications. The corresponding products are now deployed worldwide for pipeline monitoring (leak, intrusion, geotechnology) and power cable monitoring (load optimisation, fault finding).

Etienne Rochat is the author of more than 50 papers and 10 patent families.