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Cable Life Extension

Extend Cable Life by Up to 25 Years

An in-place repair and coating system for aging cables on critical circuits.

Degradation you can't afford to ignore

Cables installed outdoors, offshore, or in harsh process environments degrade under sustained exposure to UV, salt water, salt mist, ozone, chemical contact, and mechanical damage. This degradation progresses through the outer sheath first — cracking, splitting, and perishing the jacket — before affecting insulation performance and, in armoured cables, corroding the steel wire armour (SWA) beneath it.
Left unaddressed, a degraded sheath raises the risk of short circuit and localized fault. On critical circuits, that fault can trip protection systems, damage adjacent equipment, or take critical assets out of service — turning an avoidable cable fault into unplanned downtime and loss of production (LOP). Full cable replacement in an operating facility typically costs 10 to 30 times more than remediation.
CharCoat Xtend™ restores damaged sheaths and corroded armour in place, on live cables in many cases, extending usable service life by up to 25 years — without taking critical systems out of service.

Built for critical infrastructure

  • Extends cable service life by up to 25 years — no full replacement required
  • Backed by CharCoat’s 25-year warranty programme
  • Cuts remediation cost by up to 30× versus replacing cable runs
  • Applied live and non-disruptively — no shutdown required to begin remediation
  • Graded repair system — DFT and repair method matched to actual cable condition, not applied uniformly
  • No cable derating — KERI certified, full ampacity maintained on critical circuits
  • Resists UV, salt water, salt mist, ozone, and chemical exposure
  • Zero maintenance after application — minor char damage can simply be recoated
  • Buy direct, apply with your own team or contractor of choice
  • Proven across Oil & Gas, Power, Infrastructure & Utilities, Industrial Plants, Mining, and Marine/Offshore assets

How It Works

  • Step 1 — Remaining Life Assessment (RLA): Cable condition is graded from CC-1 to CC-6, identifying the correct repair path — from a single protective coat to full sheath repair.
  • Step 2 — Sheath repair: Damaged areas are rebuilt using CharCoat RT self-amalgamating tape and CharCoat ST semi-conductive tape, restoring mechanical integrity and HV electrical stress control without primer or adhesive.
  • Step 3 — Protective coating: Two coats of CharCoat CC are applied over the repaired zone, bonding directly to the sheath and curing into a permanently flexible, UV-stable layer.
  • Step 4 — Ongoing inspection: Routine inspection at 6 months, then at intervals set by the cable’s RLA priority band.

Tested to IEC 60331-11/21 for circuit integrity (90 minutes at 750°C and 1,100°C) | KERI certified for non-derating of cable capacity | ABS approved for marine and offshore applications.

Our Solutions

Xtend Repair Kit

CharCoat Xtend™

CharCoat Xtend™ is a cable repair and life-extension system for aging electrical cables exposed to UV, salt water, salt mist, ozone, chemicals, mechanical damage, and harsh industrial environments.

A graded repair-and-coat system

Cable Life Extension is a graded, three-part repair-and-coat system, matched to the condition of the cable rather than applied uniformly. It’s designed to be carried out on live, energized circuits wherever safe working procedures permit — no shutdown required to begin remediation.

A Remaining Life Assessment (RLA) first grades cable condition into four macro condition families — CC (UV / Environmental Degradation), CM (Mechanical Damage), CX (Chemical / Contamination), and CH (Heat / Fire Damage) — this determines the correct repair path. Depending on grade:

  • Armour continuity restoration — where steel wire armour has corroded, CharCoat ST shielding tape restores continuity across the damaged section, ahead of sheath rebuild.
  • Sheath repair — cracked, split, or perished outer sheaths are then rebuilt using CharCoat RT, a self-amalgamating repair tape, applied without primer or adhesive.
  • Protective topcoat — CharCoat CC, a water-based intumescent coating, is applied over the repaired zone in two coats, bonding directly to the sheath and curing into a permanently flexible, UV-stable layer.
Film thickness is grade- and repair-dependent, not fixed: 1.0mm DFT applies only to CC-1 to CC-3 grade cables where no tape or sealant repair has been carried out. Wherever repair tape or shielding tape has been applied — regardless of underlying CC grade — 1.6mm DFT is required to achieve the full 90-minute fire rating over the repaired section.

For full technical data — coating chemistry, cure times, and complete certification listings — see the CharCoat Xtend™ product page.

Buy Direct. Apply It Yourself.

Other cable life extension providers work on a supply-and-apply basis only — their technicians, their schedule. CharCoat Xtend™ is sold direct, so it can be applied by whoever already has the mandate to work on your critical cables.
  • Asset Owners: Put it in the hands of your own maintenance team, on your own turnaround or maintenance schedule, without waiting on a third-party applicator’s availability.
  • Contractors: Specify and apply CharCoat Xtend™ on live circuits as part of your existing scope on a site you already service, without bringing in an outside applicator.
Either way, it’s the same engineered system, tested to the same standards — without a single-applicator requirement.
Self-application doesn’t mean going it alone: CharCoat backs every direct sale with a full support toolkit — application methodology, HSE guidance, and QA/QC and Warranty documentation — so your team or contractor has everything needed to specify, apply, and record the work to the same standard as a turnkey install.

Technical Snapshot
At a glance

Parameter

Value/Details

Fire rating

90 minutes, IEC 60331-11 (750°C cellulosic) / 60331-21 (1,100°C hydrocarbon)

DFT

0.5mm (CC-1 to CC-3, no tape repair) / 1.6mm (mandatory wherever RT or ST is applied)

Cable compatibility

XLPE, EPR, PVC, PE sheaths — LV, MV, and HV rated

Ampacity

No derating — KERI certified

Marine / offshore

ABS approved

Live application

Compatible with live, energized circuits wherever safe working procedures permit

Re-inspection

6 months post-application, then per RLA priority band

Full cure and coverage-rate data is on the CharCoat Xtend™ product page.

Extending life, not just deferring impact

Water-based, non-toxic, low-VOC (as low as 19 g/L, LEED Credit 4.1 compliant), and halogen-free. Manufacturing a single kilometre of medium voltage cable locks in an estimated 6,000–16,000 kg CO₂eq before it’s even installed, with further carbon added at end-of-life disposal. Extending service life in place avoids that embodied carbon rather than merely deferring it — placing Cable Life Extension at the top of the circular economy waste hierarchy, above recycling, energy recovery, and disposal.

Steel Plants

Specialty solutions for steel manufacturing and rolling mills.
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Mining

Reliable protection in high-risk, harsh mining environments.
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Smelters

High-temperature defense for smelting and metal processing plants
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Power

Circuit integrity and system resilience in generation and distribution.
Learn More

Commercial & Residential Buildings

Code-compliant safety for offices, malls, airports, and more.
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Industrial Plants

Fire and thermal protection for process facilities and control centers.
Learn More

Case Study Spotlight

Application of CharCoat CC on electrical cable trays in Nueva Vizcaya mining plant

Protecting Mineral Processing Infrastructure in the Philippines with 90-Minute Fire-Rated Cable Coating

Read Full Case Study
Application of fire rated cable coating in Nueva Vizcaya mining processing plant

Securing Critical Electrical Infrastructure at a Philippine Mining Plant with 90-Minute Fire-Rated Cable Coating

Read Full Case Study
CharCoat CC cable coating applied in Transgrid Central Sydney substation cable trench for passive fire protection and firebreak performance

Transgrid Central Sydney — Upgrading Fire Resilience in Australia’s Power Backbone with CharCoat CC

Read Full Case Study

Ready to protect critical cables without taking them out of service?

Our engineers can help with grading, specification, and compliance.
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Get in touch with our team for product information, partnerships, or technical support.

Get in touch with our team for product information, partnerships, or technical support.