LS Marine Solution invests €221 million in new high-spec cable laying vessel

South Korean subsea cable installation company LS Marine Solution is investing KRW 345.8 billion (approximately €221 million) in a cable laying vessel (CLV) with a load capacity of 13,000 tons.

The company said on May 27 that the decision to invest in the new CLV comes as LS Marine Solution aims to expand its orders for large-scale HVDC and offshore wind projects, both domestic and those in Europe and North America.

The vessel is scheduled to go into service in the first half of 2028, when it will become one of the world’s top five in terms of cable loading capacity and the largest in Asia, as well as Korea’s only specialized HVDC installation vessel, according to LS Marine Solution.

The CLV is a state-of-the-art vessel capable of simultaneously laying subsea HVDC cables and optical cables, which will make it one of only a few such vessels in operation worldwide, the company says.

Together with the LS GreenLink subsea cable factory in the US, which is scheduled to begin full production around the same time the new CLV enters operation, LS Cable & System and LS Marine Solution plan to fully launch a global turnkey system encompassing design, production, and construction, according to the company.

LS Marine Solution says the new installation vessel is being built to strengthen its technological capabilities in response to the “West Coast HVDC Energy Highway”, for which the new CLV is the only alternative among domestic vessels capable of long-distance, continuous cable laying.

West Coast HVDC Energy Highway is a large-scale grid connection project proposed to be built in South Korea by 2040 to transmit 20 GW of offshore wind, expected to be installed in the country by that time, to key industrial areas. If approved to go ahead, the construction of the project would start by 2030.