wiredInUSA November 2017

Sending traffic underground

Steel wire implicated in “improper conduct” admission

Prysmian Cables has been contracted as a supplier for the WestConnex project in Sydney, Austrialia, and is to deliver cables worth $11 million. Prysmian Cables said its facilities have grown to meet demand for the contract, supplying power and communications cable for the new M4. “At our Liverpool [Sydney] facility alone we’ve grown our workforce by 10 percent, adding 30 employees this year to deliver around $11 million in product to WestConnex,” Prysmian commercial manager Adam Talbot said. “It’s a massive achievement, the total length of optical fiber produced from our plant this year could make five round trips to the moon and back.” A total of 14km of underground tunnels has been carved to date, with work progressing 24/7 at all tunneling sites. Most of WestConnex will be in underground motorway tunnels, to minimize the need for land acquisition and to remove traffic from local streets.

Kobe Steel has released a statement detailing which components were affected by what it termed “improper conduct”. In the second round of affected product announcements, Kobe listed steel powder, steel wire and other steel products as having improper inspection data. The Japanese company said it: “Deeply apologizes again for the enormous amount of trouble it is causing to customers, suppliers, shareholders and many others.” During the first round of announcements the company admitted that 40,900 tonnes of aluminum and copper parts are affected, with flat rolledaluminum, cases and forgings making up the majority. A relatively small tonnage of copper strips and tubes are also implicated. The affected products were shipped from Kobe between September 2016 andAugust 2017. Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Suzuki, Ford, Mazda, Subaru and Mitsubishi are among Kobe’s customers. Suzuki has since clarified that none of its cars use the affected materials.

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wiredInUSA - November 2017