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The Energy Projects segment saw significant
investments in the submarine cable plants
in Arco Felice (Italy) and Pikkala (Finland) to
increase capacity for the “50Hertz” contract;
this contract, worth more than Euro 700
million and awarded to the Group in 2014,
involves the design, supply and installation
of high voltage cable systems between
offshore wind farms in Germany.
Also in the submarine business, conversion
work started on the new cable-laying
ship known as “Pacifique”, a third vessel
dedicated to installation services which
will join the “Giulio Verne” and the “Cable
Enterprise” already in the fleet.
Capital expenditure in the Energy Products
segmentcontinuedtofocus,yetagainin2015,
on countries with the best growth potential:
• Suzhou and Tianjin, China: capacity
increased for Trade & Installer, Rolling
Stock and Elevator cables.
• Keila, Estonia: investments to create a
manufacturing hub for LV cables to serve
the North European market.
• Malaysia: new capacity created for
instrumentation and control cables for the
Far East market.
• Kistelek, Hungary: two projects being
completed to serve the Central European
market.
The High Voltage business saw completion
of two major investments initiated in 2014,
one at the Abbeville plant in the United
States for the construction of a second
vertical insulation line for Extra High Voltage
extruded cables, and the other at the Slatina
plant inRomania, to satisfy growing demand
in the markets of South-East Europe.
The Delft plant in the Netherlands was also
the subject of investment after winning a
High Voltage project fromTenneT, a German-
Dutch grid operator.
The Telecom segment continued working on
major projects to verticalise the optical fibre
production process at the Sorocaba plant in
Brazil and at Claremont in the United States,
forbetterservingtheNorthAmericanmarket.
There were also continued investments to
increase optical cable production capacity
at the factory in Slatina (Romania), where
work also started to build the new telecom
cables plant.
GROUP CAPITAL EXPENDITURE IN 2015
In submarine cables…
In fast growing countries ...
In high voltage…
… in optical fibre
The Group invested 31%of its total capex to achieve efficiencies and reduce costs, compared with 20%
in 2014. In particular, the Energy Products segment made significant investments in efficiency in the
metallurgical area, while the Telecom segment continued to invest in efficiency at its European optical
fibre manufacturing facilities in Battipaglia (Italy) and Douvrin (France).
In Tunisia, the Group decided to start expanding the Grombalia plant to bring in-house work previously
done by outside companies.
Ongoing drive for efficiency
Production capacity
increases/product
mix
44%
IT systems
and
R&D
5%
Other
10%
Efficiency
31%
Base-load
structural
maintenance
work
10%