News / Massive subsea cable to be protected during crossover with Shefa-2
A SECTION of a massive subsea cable running from the USA to Denmark is set to be protected to prevent damage to the Shefa-2 telecoms cable near to Shetland.
A 56m stretch of the Aurora fibre optic cable, which will reach for almost 4,500 miles from New Jersey to Blaabjerg in Denmark, will be covered in Uraduct to protect both cables from damage.
The request to use Uraduct on the section was made by Shefa-2 cable owner Shefa, which is a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of Faroese Telecom.
The Shefa-2 cable links the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney and the UK mainland.
It has been the frequent cause of issues for Shetlanders, with two major outages in 2025 – one in July and August, and another more lengthy outage in October.
Both outages left hundreds of islanders without broadband.
Environment Resources Management (ERM), speaking on behalf of the Aurora Project, said the fitting of the Uraduct would take place onboard an installation vessel before deployment to the seabed.
It said it would be bound together with bands of 19mm stainless steel or titanium, and that the cable would be buried.
However rock protection will not be used during the crossing of the Shefa-2 and Aurora cables.
Shefa managing director Páll Højgaard Vesturbú told Shetland News that the Uraduct would “provide additional protection and separation” when the Aurora cable crosses with Shefa-2.
“This helps to avoid direct contact between the cables and provides a controlled and protective arrangement at the crossing point,” he said.
Vesturbú said that Shefa did not make any request for rock protection to be used at the crossing with Shefa-2.
Rock protections will be used when the Aurora cable crosses with the HVDC interconnector between Shetland and the UK mainland.
And more rock protection will be used when Aurora crosses over with the Shetland Islands Regional Gas Export (SIRGE) link.
ERM said that a remote operated vehicle would be used to deliver around 38,500 tonnes of crushed Norwegian granite to protect cables at around 10 sites when Aurora reached UK waters.
The work is proposed to start in February 2027 and to be completed in December that year.
The Shefa-2 cable was damaged in late July 2025 by a fishing vessel, with Vodafone, Sky and TalkTalk customers among those worst affected by the outage.
Service was restored on 7 August, but little over two months later the Shefa-2 cable was damaged again – this time caused by weather.
The outage lasted for more than three weeks, with the cable then being fixed on 28 October. Some customers continued to experience outages for several days afterwards.
There was also widespread disruption following damage to the cable in 2022.
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