69 kV cable from yards, ducts and plant substations.

PILC at 69 kV is a paper-insulated, lead-sheathed cable, often installed in ducts and often oil-filled or mass-impregnated. The lead is the moisture barrier and the paper is the insulation, and both are fragile once the cable is moved. A reel that travelled badly may never test the same again.

XLPE at the same voltage uses cross-linked polyethylene over a semiconducting screen, with a copper wire or tape shield and an outer jacket. It tolerates handling better, but the semicon layers and the sheath are where age shows first, particularly at the ends where a termination was cut back.

The sheath keeps water out, and water is what ends a high voltage cable's life. On lead-sheathed cable, buyers look for cracks, fatigue marks and corrosion product, especially where the cable sat on a rack or crossed a duct mouth. On XLPE, the jacket and the metallic sheath underneath are checked for cuts and crush marks.

Corrosion product on a lead sheath is not automatically fatal, but it has to be looked at closely. White powder on the surface is one thing; a sheath eaten thin over a rack or a duct lip is another, and only a hands-on inspection settles which one is in front of you.

• Lead sheath: cracks, dents, white corrosion product and repair sleeves.
• Polymeric jacket: cuts, abrasion, UV damage at exposed ends, moisture beneath.
• Semicon and insulation: exposed screen, tracking marks, a bad cut-back.
• Ends: sealed, capped or taped, and whether the seal has been breached.

A commissioning or maintenance test sheet turns an unknown reel into a described one. Buyers ask what test was performed, when, at what voltage and with what result, and they read the trend rather than a single pass. Insulation resistance, dissipation factor and partial discharge results each say something different about the insulation.

Records showing a cable was tested and returned to service are more useful than one acceptance sheet from installation. Where no records exist, the cable is described as untested and the review moves to physical condition, sheath continuity and the state of the ends, which is slower but rarely a dead end.

A 69 kV run is not surplus until the owner says it is. The release should name the circuit, confirm the cable is de-energised, isolated, locked out and grounded, and identify who authorised removal. Where cable is being pulled from ducts, the pulling plan and the duct records belong in the same conversation, alongside the safety sequence for shielded cable.

A written clearance also settles who is responsible for what. Pulling, cutting, spooling and loading can each sit with the owner or with the buyer, and the split is agreed before a crew is booked rather than at the gate on the morning of the collection.

Nothing is cut, spooled or loaded on a verbal assurance. A written clearance and a named contact come before a collection date.