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'We have no control over weather': Basslink repair date pushed back

Tuesday, 24 May 2016 08:59:05 | Kieran Jones

The Ile de Re has returned to the repair site in Bass Strait. (Supplied: Basslink)

Basslink's chief executive has admitted he has "no confidence" that the undersea power cable will be repaired by the new return-to-service date of late June.

The fault in cable between Tasmania and Victoria was expected to be fixed by the middle of next month, but bad weather has forced Basslink to push the repair date back.

Chief executive Malcolm Eccles said that date may blow out further because of bad weather.

"I'll tell you now, we have no confidence at all because we have no control over the weather," Mr Eccles said.

"I think the last three weeks have proved that. We have no control of the weather, it's the one area of this repair that is beyond our control."

Mr Eccles said the repair vessel, the Ile De Re, had about 20 days of work left to do at sea before the cable was fixed.

But with the ship unable to perform repairs when swells hit about two metres, a wild winter could cause further delays.

"It is totally unsafe to try and do any sort of cable operation in weather of that type," he said.

The Ile de Re has now returned to the fault site 100 kilometres off the Tasmanian coast.

It is still not known what caused the tear in the cable.

An independent report on the damage is expected within a week, although Mr Eccles could not guarantee the report would identify the fault.

"Whether that (the report) has information on the fault or whether it purely provides information on what has been observed during the examination, we're just not sure," he said.

"There may be some additional testing that those experts want to do."

The fault in the cable combined with record low storages in Hydro Tasmania dam levels to create a power crisis in the state.

Recent rainfall has helped ease the problem with dam levels continuing to rise, reaching almost 22 per cent.

The state's two biggest catchments are gradually beginning to recover with Great Lake increasing to 14.7 per cent and Lake Gordon rising above 10 per cent.

Dam levels dipped below 13 per cent last month, due to months of low rainfall and heavy use of Hydro's storages due to the extended Basslink outage.

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