28,000-Tonne Cable Layer Signals Step-Change in Subsea Fleet Race

Jan De Nul's 215-metre Fleeming Jenkin, due for imminent delivery, brings a record 28,000-ton cable intake to a subsea fleet that is scaling up faster than at any point in its history. The Chinese-built vessel — first of two sisters ordered from CMHI's Haimen yard — nearly doubles the payload ambition of the nearest comparable newbuild, NKT's 23,000-tonne NKT Eleonora now fitting out in Norway.

Demand is the driver. Offshore wind's push into deeper water, cross-border grid interconnectors and hardening energy-security concerns are converging on a specialized vessel class where capacity, not tonnage of cargo, is the scarce commodity. Every operator named in this expansion cycle — Jan De Nul, NKT, Global Marine, OMS Group, Nexans, Prysmian and LS Marine Solution — ties newbuilds directly to contracted or anticipated interconnector and renewables work. That orderbook visibility is the detail worth watching; what no operator discloses is day-rate expectations.

What does the Fleeming Jenkin actually deliver?

Scale translates into fewer cable joints. The design can lay in both shallow and ultra-deep water — down to 4,000 metres — over longer distances with fewer connections, and can bundle HVDC cables in a single operation. That matters commercially: fewer joints mean fewer failure points on interconnectors where repair downtime is measured in weeks.

The power plant is equally notable. Five gensets from Anglo Belgian Corporation's Ghent factory — four 12-cylinder DV36MeOH models plus an eight-cylinder DZDMeOH — produce a combined 30,600 kW and can fire methanol, biodiesel or hydrotreated vegetable oil as well as diesel, with SCR and DPF aftertreatment. A 2.5 MWh battery installation handles peak shaving, load smoothing and spinning reserve, underpinning the ultra-low emission vessel (ULEv) concept.

Sister ship William Thomson hit the water in April 2026 and should enter service by mid-2027.

How are rivals responding?

• NKT: the 177-metre NKT Eleonora, a Salt Ship Design development built by VARD (hull at Tulcea, Romania; outfitting at Brattvaag, Norway since July), enters service in 2027 with 23,000 tonnes of HV cable capacity. It will join the 140-metre NKT Victoria on TenneT's Dutch-German offshore wind grid connections. The build runs parallel to expanded HV cable manufacturing at NKT's Karlskrona plant in Sweden — vertical integration in plain sight.
• Global Marine: after buying the 25-year-old, 128-metre Normand Clipper (now CS Clipper, 5,000-tonne capacity) from Solstad's charter in June, the UK firm ordered a 100-metre newbuild from Colombo Dockyard — a customized VARD Design type with 1,800 tonnes of cable storage, two Azipod units, two tunnel thrusters and hybrid diesel-electric plus battery power. Delivery is expected in Q4 2029.
• OMS Group: the Malaysian company has four cable layers under construction. Two Royal IHC Type 22 vessels at Pacific Shipbuilding in Vietnam — the 128-metre CS Genesis (2027) and CS Triumph (2028) — each carry 6,500 tonnes across two tanks, with dual firing lines and plough burial to 3.3 metres. Two Ulstein SX252 ships of 130 metres, contracted in late December, add the X-Bow hull, 6,500-tonne fiber-optic intake and variable-speed generators.
• Nexans: the 150-metre Nexans Electra, commissioned in May from Ulstein Verft to a Skipsteknisk design, carries 13,500 tonnes on three turntables and can lay up to four cables simultaneously. Five Bergen-engined gensets run biodiesel blends within an ABB closed-ring power and propulsion setup assigned to Nexans Marine Operations of Oslo.
• Prysmian: took delivery in July 2026 of the first of two SMD burial ploughs, capable of burying power cable up to five metres below mean seabed, for deployment on Prysmian Monna Lisa and Prysmian Alessandro Volta.
• LS Marine Solution: first steel was cut in June 2026 at Tersan's Yalova yard in Turkey on a 148-metre, Salt-designed vessel handling HVAC, HVDC and fiber-optic cable, due in H1 2028. OSM Thome supervises construction. Parent LS Cable & Systems is simultaneously expanding its LS Greenlink cable plant on Virginia's Chesapeake Bay waterfront.

Is Sri Lanka becoming a cable-ship hub?

Colombo Dockyard's award suggests so. Its references include the 113-metre KDDI Cable Infinity (2019) and the 100-metre Sophie Germain for Orange Marine (2023), with two further Orange Marine newbuilds due in March 2028 and January 2029. High-end niche tonnage migrating from European to Asian yards mirrors the wider merchant fleet pattern.

The caveat on all this capacity: record intakes only pay back if interconnector and offshore wind schedules hold. For now, geopolitical instability and energy-transition targets look set to keep expanding the market for building and maintaining subsea infrastructure.