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Prysmian Group – 2015 Sustainability Report
Integrated Sustainability
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Operations
The Prysmian Group's manufacturing operations are highly decentralised, with 88 factories in 31 countries.
The capillary distribution of factories is a strategic asset, allowing the Group to respond in a suitably timely
manner to the different requirements of market around the world.
Once again during 2015 the Prysmian Group continued to implement an industrial strategy based on the
following factors:
Manufacture of higher value-added products with greater technological content at a limited number of
factories, that become centres of excellence with outstanding technological skills. This ensures the
achievement of economies of scale, consequently increasing production efficiency and reducing capital
invested.
Constant search for greater manufacturing efficiency in the commodities sector, while maintaining a well-
diversified geographical presence in order to minimise distribution costs.
Gross investment totalled 210 million euro in 2015 (+29% compared with 2014), mainly due to the efforts
made on the projects addressing the industrial footprint, as well as to the usual level of investment made in
the submarine cable businesses (both on- and off-shore) and the optical fibre business.
The most significant investment - around 44% of the total - was dedicated to increasing production capacity
and to changes in mix.
Alongside the increase in production capacity, the related rationalisation process also continued during the
year: the factories in Ascoli (Italy) and Aubevoye (France) were closed, with the consequent transfer of their
machinery to other factories within the Group. This concentration of production has optimised the cost
structure and rationalised the industrial footprint of the Group, in order to guarantee the appropriate
saturation of plant capacity in each country.
With regard to the Energy Projects business at the Group's factories dedicated to submarine cables, Arco
Felice (Italy) and Pikkala (Finland), significant investment has been made in order to increase capacity for
the “50 Hertz” contract. This contract, worth more than 700 million euro that was awarded to the Group in
2014, involves the design, supply and installation of high voltage submarine cable systems between
offshore wind farms situated in German waters.
Again with regard to the submarine cables business, work has started on the upgrade of the "Pacifique", a
new cable-laying ship, in order to add a third dedicated installation unit alongside the "Giulio Verne" and the
"Cable Enterprise".
In the High Voltage business, the two main investment projects started in 2014 have been completed: the
first, in Abbeville (United States), involved the installation of a second vertical insulation line for Extra High
Voltage cables with extruded insulation, in order to meet the growth in volume of a market that continues to
expand; the second, in Slatina (Romania), was designed to satisfy the growth in demand from the market in
south-east Europe.
Lastly, the Group has invested in Delft (Netherlands), following the award of a project to install a high-
voltage link in the Netherlands for “TenneT”.
Investment in the Energy Products segment continued during 2015, with a focus on those countries with the
greatest growth potential, being China, Estonia, Malaysia and Hungary.