35 The 171-meter vessel, which is scheduled to be ready in the first quarter of 2025, will be part of the Prysmian Group fleet, currently composed of five state-of-the-art cablelaying vessels: Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio Verne, Cable Enterprise, Ulisse, and Barbarossa, and will allow the company to execute its order book more efficiently. Prysmian Powerlink CEO and President Hakan Ozmen said in an interview: “Prysmian’s order backlog has reached €9.1 billion mid-May 2023, and the plan is to double the capacity to meet the need for our advanced cables”. “As we ramp up our production capacity, we need to match it with more submarine installation capacity because we intend to continue offering a complete turnkey experience to our clients” said Hakan. Demand for renewable energy is stronger than ever, fueled by ambitious decarbonization targets set by governments around the world to slow the pace of global warming by mid-century. Cables are key enablers to harness the true potential of sustainable energy sources such as wind power. The new vessel, whose name will be announced in the coming weeks, will be built by VARD Group (a subsidiary of Fincantieri Group), one of the global leaders in the design and construction of specialized ships for the offshore market, and will be notable for her technology, operational flexibility and sustainability. She will match the capacity and performance of the Leonardo da Vinci, currently the biggest cable-laying ship in the world which was also built by VARD and delivered in 2021. She will have few enhanced features compared to the sister vessel, explained Hakan, who is also Projects BU Vice President. She will add several technical and sustainable solutions aimed to reduce the environmental footprint, while reaching the same loading capacity and installation flexibility of the Leonardo da Vinci, still unmatched in the cable laying market. This will help Prysmian keep pace with the surging growth in the submarine cables market after the Projects BU revenues rose 30% in 2022. Three years ago, this market’s annual revenue was €3 billion. A year ago, that number had risen to €8 billion. The market is currently worth between €13 and €14 billion, excluding the so-called framework agreements that are becoming increasingly common in Europe. “The new vessel will definitely be pivotal in strengthening our installation capabilities and supporting our leadership position in the interconnection and offshore wind farm markets, while ensuring ontime delivery and execution,” said Hakan. The market growth opportunities flowing from the energy transition pose some new technological challenges. These include the need to lay interconnections in deep water of up to 3,000 meters, for example in the Mediterranean Sea. Both the new vessel and the Leonardo da Vinci have features that allow for extreme deep-water installation of the required heavy cables. Hakan expected future growth would continue to be driven by Europe but that the United States was also playing a more significant role. “The USA is becoming a very strong market despite delays in certain projects because of pricing issues caused by inflation,” he said. Prysmian Group is investing in a new €240 million installation vessel, just months after the christening of the Leonardo da Vinci in 2022, to help expand submarine cable-laying capacity and keep up with the strong growth in the submarine cables market, driven by demand for renewable energy. INSIGHT | Tracking the Future Technical excellence 171 m overall length 34 m breadth
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