Brisbane, Australia – 20 January 2021. – SUB.CO today announced its 9,800km Oman Australia Cable (OAC) has now been fully manufactured with load #1 of 2 assembled, tested and now being loaded onto a freighter to transfer to the main-lay ship for installation from March, 2021.

Bevan Slattery, founder of SUB.CO said, “2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year to commit to building a cable of this scale, but I am delighted that we have achieved 100% of cable production and completed the first load system assembly testing within the original product schedule. This could not have been done without the assistance of our fantastic partners: SubCom.”

David Coughlan, CEO of SubCom (www.subcom.com) noted, “We knew that this was going to be a task when we committed to the program back in February 2020, but we also knew we would be up for the challenge. Despite everything that has been thrown at us, our team has done an exceptional job to keep this project going, on time, on budget and most importantly, safely.”

100% of cable production is just one of a series of key milestones already completed by the project team. The Marine Route Survey commenced in October 2020, with the final cable route for load #1 being confirmed in December 2020. The full Marine Route Survey is due for completion in February 2021 with any changes to armouring on load #2 being undertaken prior to loading later that month.

In Australia, the Perth seaward cable landing infrastructure construction commenced in October 2020 and was completed later in December, the works included an additional seaward facing duct installed for maintenance and possible future cable installation.

“Now with the marine program about to commence, our attention is moving towards landing station readiness, including constructing the terrestrial fronthaul networks and fitting-out cable landing station locations,” said Slattery.

The OAC is on target to complete its final splice in December 2021 and once completed will be the only submarine cable directly connecting continental Australia and EMEA, providing the first secure, diverse, express and lowest latency route between the two continents.