In the income statement, the depreciation is reported as ‘depreciation and amortisation expenses’ and the impairment loss as ‘impairment of long-lived assets’.

Assets not in use

As a consequence of lower fish feed production caused by fish diseases in Chile, the Pargua plant in Chile is temporarily closed. It is expected that in 2011 or 2012 the Pargua plant will be operational again. The book value of the related assets at 31 December 2009 is EUR 9.0 million. An impairment calculation has been made and did not lead to impairment.

Assets under construction

The most material and important assets under construction in 2009 relate to projects that already started in 2008, with the intention of constructing new factories and modernising production lines. These investments are capitalised as assets under construction for an amount of EUR 25.8 million (2008: EUR 45.0 million) and consist mainly of projects in Norway (EUR 11.2 million), the Netherlands (EUR 6.0 million) and the United Kingdom (EUR 3.2 million).

Capital expenditure projects

During 2009, Nutreco invested for a total amount of EUR 50.1 million (2008: EUR 86.2 million) in property, plant and equipment. Investments in factories took place across different businesses and are intended to enable growth in new markets.

Nutreco has invested in efficiency processes and capacity extension projects in more mature markets. This included projects for (i) maintaining the quality level of Nutreco’s asset base by upgrade and replacement projects, (ii) further automation of the packaging processes and (iii) additional production lines for extra capacity and the flexibility to use different raw materials.

The total expansion capital expenditure amounts to EUR 16.5 million in 2009, of which EUR 12.3 million relates to four new factories in Indonesia, Italy, Turkey and Germany, significant expansion of the existing factory in Poland and investment in other major capital expenditure projects for strengthening efficiency of main processes and increasing of capacity.

As a consequence of the credit crisis Nutreco has reduced its capital expenditure in 2009.

Impairment losses

The impairment losses in 2009 include the impairment of two plants in Canada for EUR 3.1 million and four compound feed factories in Spain for EUR 3.9 million due to the acquisition of the animal nutrition business of Cargill and impairment charges in four countries in the segment Premix and Feed Specialties.

Disposals

During 2009 Nutreco sold property, plant and equipment with a carrying amount of EUR 4.8 million (2008: EUR 4.8 million). The loss on the sale of property, plant and equipment amounted to EUR 0.1 million (2008: EUR 0.9 million) and is recorded on the other operating expenses line in the income statement.

Borrowing costs for capital expenditure

In 2009, Nutreco did not capitalise significant amounts of borrowing costs related to capital expenditure projects.

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