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Companies would spend more than $6-billion on submarine and terrestrial fibre optic cable infrastructure projects in Africa over the next two years, as countries scramble to boost international connectivity, market analysis firm BMI-TechKnowledge (BMI-T) said on Wednesday. In its latest research report, entitled 'Outlook for submarine and terrestrial fibre-optic cable developments in Africa', BMI-T said that the effective high-speed internet services required for critical business, government and consumer applications have remained either unavailable or very expensive in Africa. Governments' awareness of this situation, and the perceived commercial attractiveness of the opportunity to close this gap, has given rise to the current frenetic activity for construction of submarine fibre cables on the continent. Investment in Africa's ICT infrastructure has improved significantly over the past decade. However, marked deficiencies persist in the backbone networks across the continent. "Although countries on the African west and southern coasts have access to fibre connectivity through the SAT-3 undersea cable, an estimated 80% of Africa's international voice and data traffic is carried via satellite," said Chanakira.

Nexans, the large French wire and cable maker, announced that it has won a EUR80M (USD104.5M) contract to supply and install a 100km long high voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine cable in Newfoundland, Canada. The cable will form part of a new HVDC transmission link in Canada that stretches 1,100km. The submarine cable, which uses copper wire as its conductive core, will be manufactured in the company's NVC factory in Tokyo. The announcement is the second large submarine cable contract the company has won in the last 3 months, following the announcement that Nexans won the contract to supply and install a EUR300M (USD387.4M) submarine cable connecting Italy and Montenegro in late October 2012.

Pike Research, a clean-tech analysis and consultancy firm, reported that the number of cable projects will increase dramatically from 60 in 2011 to 350 by 2020, representing a CAGR of 21.6%. This is attributed to growing demand for offshore renewable power which requires both new and replacement grid interconnections to nearby landmasses. 53 of the 60 projects in 2011 are being deployed in Europe and the company expects that the demand from the region will continue to underpin the trend in high voltage submarine cable consumption in the future. It is thought that the supply chain will be stressed unless high voltage submarine cable production capacity, a niche market with only a few manufacturers, undergoes significant expansion.

Prysmian Group, the industry leading cable and systems provider, won a contract worth a record-breaking €800M for the development of a high voltage DC submarine power transmission link between Scotland and England. The project will involve the use of at least 400km of a new Prysmian-developed cable product called Mass Impregnated PPL cables, which utilises new material technology to operate with a record longhaul wiring voltage rating of 600kV. This means that energy losses will be kept to a minimum, resulting in a low CO2 footprint for the supply of Scotland-sourced renewable energy for England and vice-versa (the link will be bidirectional). Commissioning is expected in late 2015.

Switzerland-based power and automation technology group, ABB Ltd., won a contract tendered by TenneT, the Dutch-German transmission grid operator, to connect North Sea wind farms to the German mainland grid. The order is worth US$1.0B and ABB expect to use over 135km of 320kV submarine cable in the designed transmission system. The project is expected to be operational in 2015 and follows two other offshore wind connection orders for ABB in Germany; the 800MW Dolwin1 link awarded last year and previously, the BorWin1 project. The Dolwin1 link is expected to be completed in 2013 and will involve the use of 150km of 320kV copper submarine cable.

Prysmian, the Italy-based manufacturer of wire and cable announce on 26th February that it has secured a €350M (US$462M) contract from Alstom Grid to supply the DolWin3 project with power cables. The contract, which will involve supplying and installing 900MW submarine and land cables along a 78km sea route and an 83km land route, will connect off-shore wind farms in the North Sea to the German power grid. The work is scheduled to be completed by December 2016.

Nexans SA, NKT Holdings and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a previous owner of Prysmian SpA, are due to attend a hearing on 11-18th June 2012 as part of the European Commission's (EC) probe into an alleged underground and submarine high voltage power cable cartel. The EC received official complaints about 12 companies in July 2011. The maximum fine for colluding to fix prices is 10% of yearly sales revenue.

Prysmian Cables & Systems said it expects its Chinese sales volumes to increase by 50% by 2010, an increase which has been aided by the opening of the company's fifth production plant in China. The company's sales increased by 16% year-on-year in 2007 and said that further growth opportunities were linked to the development of new infrastructure for energy and communications. Prysmian's new plant will be based in Tianjin and is expected to have an annual capacity of 10,000tpy including special cables for e.g. rail networks, mining and windfarms.

Prysmian S.p.A has announced its sales results for 2008. Sales amounted to Euro 5,144 million, exhibiting a 4.2% y-o-y organic growth. Adjusted EBITDA reached Euro 542 million, with a sales margin of 10.5% compared to 10.3% in 2007. Adjusted net income was Euro 332 million, up by 11% y-o-y. The group achieved strong performance in its utilities business, which grew by 12.1% y-o-y. This is attributed to positive performance of high voltage underground and submarine cables. The trade and installers business contracted by 5% due to the slowdown in the construction industry. Industrial cables exhibited organic growth of 5% mainly because of positive performance in the oil and gas, and renewable energy sectors.

Prysmian SpA, the Italian cable maker, has announced consolidated sales results for Q1 2009. Sales amounted to EURO 926 million, a decrease of 11.5% compared with the same period in 2008. Net profit was EURO 91 million, down by 11.1% y-o-y. The company attributed this decline to the economic downturn, already evident in Q4 2008. In response to this, Prysmian is focusing on higher value-added activities and high-tech market segments. The company said that it managed to achieve satisfactory profits supported by the growth of sales in the sectors of high voltage underground and submarine cables along with industrial cables such as those for oil& gas, renewable energy and infrastructure.

Nexans, a leading cable manufacturer, has announced plans to develop an underground Extra High Voltage (EHV) cable manufacturing plant in the US, which is expected to be commissioned in the summer of 2013. The company also intends to extend its submarine High Voltage (HV) activities. Investment is expected to amount to US$80M. Nexans hopes that the facilities will allow it to meet the growing demand from the EHV and HV cable market in the US.

It was reported that the European Commission charged twelve companies with collusion for specific practices that they underwent in the submarine, underground power cable and related products sector. Nexans, Prysmian, ABB and NKT all confirmed that they had received a charge sheet from the European competition authorities and will respond following a thorough analysis of the E.U.'s Statement of Objections. The maximum fine applicable is 10% of global revenues. The charges relate to raids which took place over two years ago, however, the legal process was delayed due to the recent disaster in Japan.