E-marine, a principal provider of submarine cable solutions in the Middle East, has secured a major maintenance contract for the Bay of Bengal Gateway.

The Bay of Bengal Gateway links five countries, Oman, UAE, India (Mumbai and Chennai), Sri Lanka and Malaysia, said a statement from the company.

The total length of the gateway is 8,040 km. It is a three-fibre pair cable, with an overall design capacity of 10 terabits/second per fibre pair, it said.

The project consortium comprises six companies, including Vodafone (UK), Etisalat (UAE), Omantel (Oman), Reliance Jio (India), Dialog Axiata (Sri Lanka) and Telekom Malaysia, it added.

The section under E-marine’s maintenance spans almost 4,000 km from Oman, through UAE, India, and on to close to Sri Lanka, said the statement.

E-marine made the announcement at SubOptic 2016 in Dubai. This is the first time the event has been held in the Middle East and coincides with 30 years of SubOptic, it stated.  

Omar Jassim Bin Kalban, managing director and chief executive officer of E-marine, said: “We are delighted to be part of a consortium of highly respected companies that is focused on providing a vital communication link connecting five countries.”

“The section under our maintenance spans almost 4,000 km from Oman, through UAE, India, and on to close to Sri Lanka. This project underlines the trust the industry places in E-marine. We have unrivalled expertise in submarine cable installation and maintenance. With demand rising for faster internet speeds, we believe we will continue to play a key role providing high-quality communications infrastructure regionally and globally,” he added.

E-marine has a fleet of four fully equipped cable ships and a special purpose vehicle with state-of-the-art facilities. The company’s vessels are all equipped with the latest survey, cable laying and navigation equipment, and cable management systems. E-marine provides a complete range of sub-sea telecommunication and off-shore energy cables for the telecoms, and oil and gas industries, said the statement.

E-marine has installed nearly 20,000 km of submarine cables in the region and maintains 100,000 km of submarine cables across the Middle East, Africa and Sub-continent section. E-marine established the first sub-sea cable ship in the Middle East region, and grounded the first communication cables in the UAE for better communication with neighbouring countries, including Qatar and Bahrain, it added. – TradeArabia News Service