Producer

Nexans

NEX.PAHQ FR · Paris, Francewebsite ↗

Nexans S.A. (Euronext: NEX, HQ Paris; ~€7B revenue) is a major European cable and wire manufacturer — energy cables, building wires, automotive wiring harnesses, telecoms cables. Nexans operates copper rod drawing and cable production at multiple European facilities including Lens (France), Dortmund (Germany), Hannover (Germany), and Sterlitamak (Russia, operations under review post-2022). Nexans is moving toward a pure-play energy cable focus (offshore wind, grid cables). As a major European rod consumer, Nexans buys rod primarily from Aurubis Hamburg and spot market LME-linked contracts. Nexans has limited self-integrated rod production.

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Inputs supplied

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Goods downstream

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Facilities

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Stories

Where it shows up

Goods downstream

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What else they do

Business segments

The company's full revenue map, where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.

  • High-Voltage Grid & Offshore Wind Cables

    45%
  • Medium Voltage Distribution

    25%
  • Building & Infrastructure

    20%
  • Telecom & Other

    10%

Intelligence

What's known

Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.

  • Did you know2023

    Nexans manufactures HVDC submarine cables used for offshore wind power export AND for country-to-country power interconnectors (like the Celtic Interconnector linking Ireland to France). The same cable technology and Nexans cable-laying vessels used for offshore wind farm connections also lay the submarine cables that NATO defense planners classify as critical infrastructure. In November 2024, a suspected Russian-linked vessel severed undersea data and power cables in the Baltic Sea. This incident highlighted that Nexans and Prysmian submarine cables -- essential for European energy market integration and offshore wind buildout -- are physically vulnerable to sabotage in the same manner as Nordstream gas pipelines. Energy transition infrastructure (offshore wind interconnectors) and critical communications infrastructure (data cables) share the same physical vulnerability in undersea cable corridors.

    Nexans S.A.
  • Origin2023

    Nexans SA was created in 2001 when Alcatel spun off its cable business -- which Alcatel had assembled from acquisitions of Societe Alsacienne de Constructions Mecaniques (SACM, 1906 origins), Kabel Metal (German), and numerous other European cable companies. Alcatel's cable business traced back to the early telegraph cable industry of the 19th century; Alcatel's predecessor companies laid some of the first undersea telegraph cables that connected continents in the 1850s-1870s. Nexans has since pivoted away from telecom and automotive cables toward energy infrastructure, selling its automotive harness business in 2019 and positioning as a pure-play energy cable company serving offshore wind, grid modernization, and subsea interconnectors. A company with origins in Victorian-era telegraph cables is now laying the underwater cables that connect offshore wind farms producing the electricity that is supposed to replace 20th-century fossil fuel infrastructure.

    Nexans S.A.