4/1/2022 - Earlier this year, LS Group’s cable manufacturing unit, LS Cable & System (LSCS), officially opened its new power cable plant in Indonesia, a joint venture.

A press release said that the new plant, called LSAGI, is a joint venture between LSCS and Artha Graha Network, Indonesia’s 10th-largest conglomerate. The Korean firm owns a 75% stake in the entity.

The plant, located on a 64,000-square-meter site in the Artha Industrial Complex near Jakarta, will mainly produce overhead wires for power transmission and distribution and low-voltage cables for buildings and plants.

LSCS said it aims to expand its presence in the Southeast Asian country by taking advantage of its local partnership business experience and sales networks ranging from banks to hotels. “In the cable industry, each country is strengthening policies to protect its own companies,” an LS official said. “We will pursue different strategies for different markets to better meet the local demands.”

The firm also expected a quick recovery of the pandemic-hit cable market, citing Indonesia’s planned relocation of its capital from Jakarta to a jungled area of Kalimantan on Borneo island, which involves a $32 billion mega development project. LSCS now operates a total of 12 production facilities around the world, including in the U.S., Poland, Vietnam and China.

8/3/21  LS Cable & System (LSC&S) President & CEO Myung Roe-Hyun announced that the South Korean company will expand its submarine cable capacity at its campus in Donghae City, Gangwon-do.

A press release said that LSC&S will build an additional submarine cable plant in Building No. 2 of the Donghae City campus, which is in the Gangwon Province. The site now has three plants. The fourth plant will feature the tallest power cable production tower in South Korea. When completed, the vertical continuous extraction system (VCV) tower will be as tall as a 63-story apartment, the tallest structure in Donghae City. Construction will start this October and is expected to be completed by the end of April 2023. The project, which will cost more than $161 million, will increase LSC&S’s submarine cable production capacity more than 1.5 times. The 172-m-tall VCV Tower is designed to improve cable insulation quality and increase productivity.

LS Cable & System built Korea’s first submarine cable plant in Donghae City in 2008, and has invested about US$296 million to date. The existing plant, which has a total floor area of 84,000 sq m, when have an additional 31,000 sq m.

 “As countries around the world are increasing investments in renewable energy to become carbon neutral, the submarine cable market is also growing,” said Myung Roe-Hyun, President & CEO of LS Cable & System. “We will contribute to the national economy by expanding domestic investments.”

4/5/2021: South Korea’s LS Cable & System (LC&S) announced that it will be the sole supplier of magnet wire for the drive motors (enamel wire) of the Hyundai IONIQ 5 and Kia EV6 electric vehicles.

A press release said that LC&S is the first South Korean company to mass-produce magnet wires that can be used at 800 V. Sales are estimated to reach more than KRW200 billion within 6 years. It noted that the company succeeded in using a high-performance insulation material to develop a high-voltage magnet wire with improved efficiency.

As the charging speed competition is intensifying in the electric vehicle industry, development of high-voltage parts supporting this is becoming more important. “We expect that this supply will provide us with an opportunity to preempt the high-voltage electric vehicle wire market, which is still in its early stage,” the release said.

LC&S projects that global demand for environmentally friendly automotive magnet wire market will grow more than six-fold by 2025. It is responding by reinforcing its marketing efforts and increasing investments with regard to global automakers. “The drive motor and the battery are important enough to be called the two hearts of an electric vehicle,” said LC&S President & CEO Myung Roe-Hyun. “We are certain that the wires and parts business, which serves as the blood vessels of the heart, will also grow rapidly, so we are fostering them as new growth engines.”
Since 2016, LC&S has been supplying GM with the magnet wire (400V) for the drive motors of the Chevrolet Bolt EV. It is also discussing development of HV magnet wires that will be used by all EVs produced by GM.

LS Cable & System has inked a five-year contract with Danish energy firm Orsted to supply high-voltage export cables for offshore wind farms.

A press release said that the exact size of the deal is unknown, but media reports estimated that it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. LS Cable & System has participated in multiple offshore wind projects with Orsted. It previously supplied cables to the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea One and Two, in England, and it will supply subsea cables for the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a offshore wind farms in Taiwan.

Orsted is set to build a 1.6-GW offshore wind farm project in the waters off Incheon, South Korea, which Orsted Asia-Pacific President Matthias Bausenwein said would offer massive opportunities for local suppliers. The offshore wind farm will be installed with 100-140 wind turbines and be able to generate electricity for 1.3 million households annually. The project supports Korea’s Green New Deal initiative, which aims to put up 12 GW of offshore wind power capacity by 2030.

“The trend of investing in renewable energy will continue, even during the current Covid-19 situation,” said Myung Roe-hyun, president and CEO of LS Cable & System. “We are delighted to continue this cooperation with the leading company in offshore wind energy.”

LS Cable & System (LS C&S) has won a government contract that was valued at approximately $82 million to supply both low-voltage and high-voltage power cable to Singapore.

A press release said that LS C&S will supply 400 km of cable though to 2021.The orders were from the Singaporean government, which has been replacing aged cables since 2017. LS C&S noted that has a strong foothold in Singapore, obtaining the biggest market share there. Raising transparency in operation and management of its business there, and active technological support for the past several years, led to winning the deal, it said.

“To overcome the global economic slowdown and the limited domestic demand, we have established a strong foothold overseas as a global company,” LS C&S President and CEO Myung Roe-hyun said. “This deal is a valuable achievement based on past efforts at a difficult time due to the Covid-19 crisis.”
In other news, LS C&S reported that it has begun to ship submarine cable for Taiwan’s offshore wind farms. Last year, it won an order to supply the high-voltage cable for the first offshore wind farm project being built in Taiwan. Some 70 km of cables will need to be installed for the site, which is located off the coast of Yunlin Xian in the west of Taiwan.

LS Cable & System President & CEO Myung Roe-Hyun announced that the company has opened a new cable plant in Poland, its first production base in Europe.

A press release said that the plant is the first such one for a South Korean company in Europe, “the home of cable.” The plant produces parts for electric vehicle batteries and optical cables for communication. More than 100 people, including Cha-Yup Koo, chairman of LS Cable & System; Roe-Hyun; Lee Dong-Wook, CEO of LS C & S Poland; Dariusz Kucharski, mayor of Dzierzoniow; and Mira Sun, Korean ambassador to Poland, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“LS C & S is pushing ahead with its localization and regional base strategy,” Roe-Hyun said. “The Polish plant will serve as the key base for advancing into Europe, and transform the company into a total cable company by adding the power cable business.”
The release said that Poland has very roads and power grids, and the Polish government is known to fully support investment of foreign capital with various tax incentives. Also, the company said that the nation’s geographic location is favorable to export to other European countries and its excellent workforce availability are important reasons for selecting Poland.

LS C & S established a subsidiary that produces parts for electric vehicle batteries (LSEVP) in Poland in November 2017. LSEVP can produce parts for 300,000 electric vehicles annually, and is planning to increase supplies to European automakers starting with LG Chem in nearby Wroclaw at the end of this year.

LS C & S established its optical cable production subsidiary (LSCP) next to its LSEVP plant in February 2018 as the European optical cable market has grown rapidly. It is the third optical cable plant of LS C & S, following the plants it built in Gumi, Korea and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

LSCP began production last April and has proven that it can produce three million fiber km a year—about 7% of the European market—and has since been supplying its products to key European carriers in Italy, France, etc. With the completion of the Polish plant, LS C & S now has a total of 19 business sites at home and abroad, including nine overseas in Vietnam, China and the U.S.