Cable Failure as a Business Model: The Technical Interdependency Between Njord Subsea and TSO’s.
In the subsea cable industry, reliability is king—but failure is inevitable. Despite advances in materials science, cable design, and installation techniques, subsea cable systems remain vulnerable to a range of complex failure modes. From third-party damage to joint failures and insulation breakdown, even the best-engineered systems can experience operational interruptions.
This is where Njord Subsea enters the picture. As a specialized subsea engineering consultancy, Njord provides, risk modelling, engineering and project management support during repair campaigns. But this highly technical work presents a unique dynamic: One of Njord’s core business streams is activated by the very events that cable operators spend millions trying to avoid.
Understanding the Technical Failure Landscape
Subsea cable failures are often multi-factorial. Common causes include:
• External aggression (e.g. trawler strikes, anchor drags)
• Bend-induced fatigue at suspension points or free spans
• Water ingress due to joint or termination failures
• Cable burial exposure from sediment mobility or scour
Each of these scenarios requires not just field response, but a deep understanding of subsea environments, cable mechanics, electrical systems, and often forensic engineering techniques to determine root cause.
Njord Subsea specializes in exactly this intersection of disciplines—bringing together mechanical, electrical, and geotechnical engineering to support operators during response and root cause analysis.
Misaligned Incentives, Aligned Expertise
From a business standpoint, Njord Subsea’s success is intrinsically tied to failure events. When a cable fault occurs, Njord is often among the first technical teams mobilized to support:
• Repair strategy development
• Market engagement & availability of repair assets
• Tender preparation
• Environmental risk analysis for reburial or re-routing
Transmission System Operators, however, define success by not needing Njord’s services. Their focus is on asset uptime, through-life performance, and OPEX reduction through preventative monitoring and predictive maintenance. This creates a natural tension: the consultancy benefits commercially from the very incidents that disrupt the operator’s core business.
A Shift Toward Strategic Engineering Services
To mitigate this tension Njord are expanding their role beyond failure response. Increasingly, they are involved earlier in the asset lifecycle, including:
• Design validation during procurement and system engineering phases
• Route engineering and risk assessment during planning
• Cable protection system (CPS) optimization based on environmental loading
• Condition monitoring strategy development using distributed temperature sensing (DTS) or electrical stress measurement
• Geotechnical risk modelling for cable-soil interaction and scour prediction
By engaging upstream, Njord transitions from being purely reactive to becoming a proactive engineering partner. This evolution not only aligns better with operators’ long-term reliability goals but also diversifies Njord’s own value proposition in a maturing and increasingly performance-driven industry.
Navigating the Engineering Ethics of Failure
There’s an important nuance to acknowledge: Njord doesn’t “want” cables to fail. The company’s technical engineers are, by nature, problem-solvers—not profiteers of catastrophe. However, the business reality is clear: a significant portion of revenue is generated by addressing failures.
This isn’t unethical—it’s just the reality of any failure-response service model. Think of metallurgical labs that perform post-mortems on turbine blades, or aerospace consultancies investigating fatigue fractures. In these industries, failures are inevitable, and the value lies in how quickly and competently specialists can respond and help prevent recurrence.
Conclusion: From Crisis Response to Engineering Partnership
The relationship between Njord Subsea and subsea cable operators is inherently complex, driven by technically challenging problems and commercially sensitive outcomes. It’s a classic case of misaligned incentives but aligned expertise.
The future points toward a more integrated partnership. As cable operators demand higher system availability, real-time diagnostics and smarter lifecycle strategies, consultancies like Njord will increasingly be called upon not just to fix the fault—but to help design it out of the system entirely.
In this evolving landscape, Njord Subsea isn’t just reacting to failure – it’s engineering resilience.
ABOUT NJORD SUBSEA
Njord Subsea is a specialist offshore engineering firm with a track record in mooring systems, subsea cable operations from both offshore and the office. With a commitment to safety, innovation, and regulatory compliance, Njord supports clients across the globe in delivering complex marine energy projects.