Prysmian Group says it plans to invest $54 million to expand the company's facility in Claremont, NC. The expansion will increase the plant's capacity by 60% and support fiber-optic production for the telecom industry. This investment will bring Prysmian's approved capital expenditure in its Claremont facility to over $79 million since 2014.
According to Prysmian, this is its third major expansion in Claremont since the company's pilot $5 million investment in 2014 to establish pre-form technology. Prysmian Group partnered with the State of North Carolina, the City of Claremont, and Catawba County officials on a $20 million investment in 2016 for expanding the facility's technology to enable the production of fiber-optic pre-forms.
The Catawba County expansion is partially facilitated by a $500,000 grant to the City of Claremont from the Building Reuse Program, under the Rural Development Division of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, says Prysmian. The new initiative will create 50 new jobs with an average salary of $44,000 over the next three years, Prysmian states.
"These investments have been critical to making our Claremont facility self-sufficient from internal Prysmian supply from Europe while providing additional logistic and quality control advantages," said Steve Linden, Prysmian's Optical Fiber Business Unit director of operations. "We are grateful to the state of North Carolina and county for supporting this latest development, which will allow us to significantly expand our equipment to produce fiber-optic cable from end to end."
The Claremont facility expansion is part of Prysmian's ongoing investments in North American and worldwide to advance its global production capacity and capabilities. In May of this year, Prysmian announced plans to invest throughout North America, thanks in part to a contract to supply fiber-optic cable for Verizon's ongoing fiber platform roll out. The company announced a $14 million investment to its Abbeville, South Carolina facility to fill future renewable energy projects in July, and broke ground on a new R&D Center expansion in Lexington, SC in August. In October, Prysmian announced plans to expand the company's North American headquarters in South Carolina's Lexington County.
Overall, Prysmian North America operates 11 plants employing more than 2,500 people to serve the telecom and energy cable markets.