Somebody has to make the cable.
What happened
The Okonite Company will spend $400 million on a new plant at its existing site in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, and hire 105 people to run it, as Jessica Holdman reported for the SC Daily Gazette on September 22. Ross Norton at SCBiz and Abigail Quinn at ABC News 4 covered the same announcement out of the South Carolina Department of Commerce.
The building is 552,000 square feet, going up on company land off Rowesville Road near the Orangeburg municipal airport. Construction starts before the end of this year. Okonite expects to finish in two to three years.
What comes out of it is high voltage electrical cable. Okonite has been insulating wire since 1878, runs 34 locations in the United States, and already has two plants in Orangeburg County. Its cable goes into utility systems, solar projects, rail, and oil, gas and chemical facilities. The company notes that its product powers the Statue of Liberty.
"We thank the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the Orangeburg County Development Commission and the city of Orangeburg for their invaluable help and prompt actions in making our expansion possible," Okonite chief executive David J. Sokira said in the announcement, per SCBiz.
Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash
Why it counts
Every mile of line a utility builds, every substation tied into a new campus, every solar farm that gets wired up, all of it runs on cable that somebody extruded, insulated, tested and spooled in a building like this one. The conductor is not the glamorous part of the grid. It is the part you cannot skip.
That is what makes a 552,000 square foot cable plant a buildout story told from the factory side. Orangeburg County is not adding a line or a generator. It is adding capacity to supply the people who build lines and generators, and it is doing it in a rural county where a plant of this size sets the local wage floor for a generation of workers.
The wage is the number to watch. Holdman reported an average of $33 an hour for the new positions, against a state and local average of $28.50. At 40 hours a week that is roughly $68,600 a year, in a county where the plant is already, in the words of Orangeburg County economic development director Ty Davenport, one of the premier employers around.
Okonite has been insulating wire since 1878. The building going up off Rowesville Road is its third plant in one South Carolina county.
There is a second reason the timing matters. Construction of the load these cables will serve is running hot. John Egan reported for Industrial Info Resources on September 22 that $186 billion of US data center projects began construction in the first half of 2026, across 187 projects. That is up 86 percent in dollars and 35 percent in project count from the same period a year earlier. Every one of those sites needs power delivered to it, and the delivery hardware has to be built by somebody in a plant somewhere.
Until now, a lot of that somewhere has been overseas. A $400 million bet on domestic extrusion capacity is a bet that the order book stays full long enough to pay the building off.
The numbers
Okonite Company, Orangeburg County, South Carolina, announced September 22, 2026:
- $400 million capital investment
- 552,000 square feet of new manufacturing space on existing company property off Rowesville Road
- 105 new jobs, per the South Carolina Department of Commerce announcement
- $33 an hour average wage for the new positions, against a $28.50 state and local average, per the SC Daily Gazette
- Construction begins in late 2026, completion expected in two to three years
- Founded 1878, 34 US locations, two existing plants in Orangeburg County
- $1.5 million Rural Infrastructure Fund grant to Orangeburg County for a rail spur, grading and site preparation
- Job development credits approved by the state Coordinating Council for Economic Development
The county side of the deal is a fee in lieu of taxes agreement that steps the manufacturer assessment ratio down to 4 percent and, by the SC Daily Gazette's reading of the terms, averages about a 25 percent reduction in the tax bill over the life of the agreement. That is the trade rural counties make: a lower rate on a much larger base, plus the payroll, plus the suppliers who follow. Orangeburg County Council chairman Johnnie Wright put the case for it in seven words, more quality jobs right here at home.
Photo by TECNIC Bioprocess Solutions on Unsplash
What comes next
The first crews on site are construction crews. A rail spur, grading, a half million square feet of shell, then the mechanical and electrical fit out that a cable line needs, and every one of those is work for South Carolina contractors before a single Okonite production job is posted.
Production hiring follows the building. Okonite lists openings on its careers page at okonite.com, and the company already runs two plants in the county, which means the third one is landing in a place where people know the work and know somebody who does it. That is the quiet advantage of expanding where you already are, and it is why economic development officials fight so hard for the second and third plant rather than only chasing the first.
Governor Henry McMaster tied the decision to the state's labor pool when the announcement went out, calling the expansion a testament to the skilled workforce available in South Carolina. Commerce Secretary Harry M. Lightsey III called it an economic advantage for the county. Both are the standard lines at a ribbon cutting. In this case the 105 job number and the $33 hourly average are on the record behind them.
The Bottom Line
A 148 year old cable maker looked at where demand for high voltage conductor is heading and put $400 million into a rural South Carolina county it already knows. Grid buildout gets covered as a construction story and a permitting story. It is also a manufacturing story, and the jobs in that version of it pay above the local average, sit in a county that needs them, and last as long as the line keeps running.
Sources: Electric cable manufacturer plans $400M expansion in SC, Jessica Holdman, SC Daily Gazette, September 22, 2026. Okonite plans $400M Orangeburg County expansion, Ross Norton, SCBiz, September 22, 2026. Okonite announces Orangeburg County expansion with $400M project, creating 105 jobs, Abigail Quinn, ABC News 4, September 22, 2026. As Data Center Construction Plans Soar, U.S. Electric Utilities Race to Serve Once in a Lifetime Load Growth, John Egan, Industrial Info Resources, September 22, 2026.
