Potential Aerial Cable Application - Well Pad

[RatherBeHunting307]

First time poster here.

I'm an EE whose preferred residence is in Wyoming where I have worked for an electrical contractor for the past 10 years. I have taken an "assignment" and moved to Bakken North Dakota to do some consulting for an oil producer for the next year or so.

My current power distribution is being done with cable tray around the perimeter of the well pad with armored cable in the tray. In Wyoming we have issues with rodents eating into large cables in the winter which is why the cable is armored.

This producer is starting to look at potentially installing concrete piers with bolt patterns and steel pipe racks placed no fewer than every 20'.

If I don't come up with any better ideas, my plan is to continue with the cable tray installed on the top of these pipe rack supports. These supports would be of a sufficient height that I wouldn't worry so much about needing to install armored cable.

Now to the question . . . I'm looking into whether or not it would be feasible to install my feeders "aerially" from one support to the next without the tray? The most difficult part of the install would be 3 parallel runs of 350MCM w/ ground. The cable would be fairly heavy, but my support distances are also rather short.

Any comments from folks who have aerial cable install experience would be most helpful.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[petersonra]

I have no experience to give you but i sure would prefer the idea of hanging the cable on a messenger wire over trying to support cable tray on 20 foot intervals.

 

[mgookin]

I think your cable tray will withstand the snow, ice and wind better. Uptime has a value. Downtime gets expensive.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

If you are talking about running the cables between the supports without a messenger cable, then I think Article 398 would apply and the maximum distance between supports would be 15'.
You could do a messenger supported system per the rules in Article 396.