Tratos's FIRESAFE TW950e cables have been approved to London Underground Limited (LUL) standard 1-085 A3 and are now authorised for use in sub surface locations, including tunnels and underground stations.
FIRESAFE TW950e is an enhanced fire resistant cable for systems needing to operate fully during a fire for longer periods than those normally required for single phase evacuation; these include fire detection, alarm and emergency voice communication systems. 
Commenting on this latest development, John Light, Director of Tratos Ltd., states: “achieving compliance with this LUL standard is a significant achievement as the tests are rigorous and stringent, as they should be for a potentially life-saving product.  Organisations the world over recognise this LUL standard as a benchmark for fire safety.”
In addition to sub surface locations, Firesafe is also suitable for use in high rise buildings that do not have sprinkler systems and have passed evacuation arrangements, or large premises where areas remote from the fire could remain occupied on the condition the fire does not damage cables serving the alarm system in those locations.

SPE Offshore Europe 2013 Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in Aberdeen, has been once again a successful event for Tratos Ltd. Our stand  included the special Tratos JBA cable range which we have specifically designed for the difficoult application of the offshoreindustry. Tratos had a strong presence at the event as one of the few leaderscablemanufacturers exhibiting.
SPE Offshore Europe offers the ideal opportunity for customers to engage with suppliers face-to-face.
With the oil and gas sectors being Tratos’ primary market, representing 50% of its turnover, Offshore Europe is the ideal platform from which to showcase Tratos’ extensive range of hydraulic, electro-hydraulic and electrical umbilical cabling for subsea oil and gas extraction and Oil&Gas BS6883 cables.

Chinese authorities are urging its national wire and cable companies to concentrate upon improving the quality of its products and not just expanding capacity.
During a recent two-day summit on wire and cable products in China, Wei Chuanzhong, deputy chief of administration at the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) reported that some wire and cable products still fail to reach required quality standards and may endanger people’s health and public safety.
“Electric fires account for about 80 percent of severe fire hazards in China every year and over half of such fires were triggered by the use of substandard electrical wire and cable product,” said Wei Chuanzhong.
A quality inspection carried out by AQSIQ, the ministerial-level department under the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, found that of the 1,762 batches of electrical wire and cable products randomly selected from ten provinces, 208 batches were substandard.
China has more than 7,800 wire and cable companies and the industry’s output was worth more than $176,000 billion in 2011.

The Approved Cables Initiative (ACI) has updated its cable reference card to reflect new requirements for cable marking in 2013. The revised reference card, which includes examples of cable marking and a cable safety checklist, is available to download here

The Approved Cables Initiative (ACI) is supporting The Electrical Safety Council’s call for a more effective product recall system following concerns in its own industry over the effectiveness of the current system. The call by the Electrical Safety Council (ESC), a UK wide consumer safety charity, follows the emergence of a number of serious incidents involving recalled products and has led the ESC to call for manufacturers to face unlimited fines if they undertake inadequate or slow recalls.
Manufacturers who delay or take inadequate action in a recall situation currently face only a £5,000 penalty but the ESC would like to see tougher fines based on a percentage of profits from the recalled product. The change in legislation would it believes help ensure manufacturers respond quickly and effectively in recall situations.
The ESC is also inviting Trading Standards to set out clear and unambiguous guidelines on exactly what a manufacturer should do if one of their products is subject to a recall.
Research by the ESC shows that on average only 10-20 percent of recalled electrical products are ever returned, exposing millions of people in the UK to the risk of fire or electrocution. Since 2007 there have been 266 recall notices for electrical items.

More than 120,000 reels of counterfeit electric cables, believed to have been distributed through a supplier in Hong Kong, have been seized by French customs operations Nantes, Rouen and Toulouse.
Earlier this year, 15,700 counterfeit electrical cables reels were discovered in a discount store in Vendee, mid West France. The find led customs officers to a retail outlet in Manche where more than 80,000 reels of counterfeit electrical cables were also found. In a further raid, officers found 20,000 reels in the Hautes-Pyrenees region.
The counterfeit cables, manufactured to appear as copper cables, were made with an iron alloy and reported to be “highly flammable and of poor quality” by the Directorate General of Customs and Excise.