ABB will invest more than $400 million to double the capacity of its high-voltage cables manufacturing facility in Karlskrona, Sweden, to meet growing demand for subsea cables.
  
The investment plan includes construction of new buildings and installation of additional manufacturing lines at the existing plant. The expansion will be carried out in a phased manner and is expected to be completed by 2015.
  
“This investment will help us to boost production capacity and meet the growing demand for high-voltage subsea power cables,” said Peter Leupp, head of ABB’s Power Systems division. “Subsea cables play an integral part in the efficient and reliable transmission of electricity for a range of applications such as interconnectors between countries, offshore wind connections and power supply to oil and gas platforms.”
  
This move follows an investment of about $90 million announced last year to build a new cable factory in the US - in Huntersville, North Carolina - for land cables used in alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) applications. The Huntersville plant, currently under construction, is scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2012.  A major upgrade of ABB’s Karlskrona facility has already been completed earlier this year.