Kentucky cable reels: three plants and the Ohio River

Kentucky's cable plants

Southwire lists its Kentucky Plant in Hawesville, on the Ohio River in Hancock County, upriver from Owensboro. Okonite lists a plant in Richmond, south of Lexington on I-75. Prysmian runs a plant in Lawrenceburg, between Lexington and Frankfort, which marked 50 years of operation and employs 250 administrative and manufacturing staff.

Prysmian's North American headquarters is in Highland Heights, in northern Kentucky across the river from Cincinnati. That's an office, not a plant, but it shows how much of the North American cable business runs through the state.

What three plants mean for reels

Plants ship reels full, and each maker has its own view on getting its reels back. What reaches us from a plant region is the overflow: reels from other makers that came in with mixed shipments, reels that don't meet a return program's rules, and empties at contractors and distributors who bought the cable.

Okonite's technical notes describe how the reusable reel system works: Class 1 and Class 2 wood reels are picked up free from end users who have enough of them, refurbished by the reel maker to the level of new reels and sold back to cable makers. Reels that fall outside that, and outside programs such as Service Wire's, which takes only its own nailed reels with 30 to 72 inch flanges, at least 75% of staves intact and a sound arbor hole, are what we buy.

Utilities: KU, LG&E, the co-ops and TVA

EIA's 2024 table of Kentucky's top five retailers is Kentucky Utilities, Louisville Gas and Electric, Kenergy, Kentucky Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority. KU and LG&E, sister companies, cover Lexington, Louisville and much of central and western Kentucky. Kenergy is a co-op in the west around Henderson and the Ohio River counties. Kentucky Power serves the eastern coalfields. TVA supplies the local systems in the far west and south.

Eastern Kentucky's mountains make line work slow and reel-heavy: steep rights-of-way, long spans and frequent storm damage. Western Kentucky's river towns and industrial sites, including aluminum and chemical plants along the Ohio, use heavy power cable.

The river and the interstates

The Ohio River runs the whole northern border of Kentucky, from Ashland past Maysville, northern Kentucky, Louisville, Owensboro, Henderson and Paducah. The big Kentucky metros all sit near a state line: Louisville faces Jeffersonville, Indiana; Covington and Newport face Cincinnati; Henderson faces Evansville; Paducah is close to southern Illinois.

That makes cross-river trading simple. A Louisville lot may go to a buyer in southern Indiana; a northern Kentucky lot to one in Ohio. I-64 crosses the state from Louisville through Frankfort and Lexington to Ashland, I-65 runs from Louisville through Elizabethtown and Bowling Green to Nashville, I-75 from Cincinnati through Lexington to Corbin and Tennessee, I-71 links Louisville and Cincinnati, and I-24 and I-69 serve the west.

• Louisville and the Ohio River west: Louisville, Elizabethtown, Owensboro, Henderson
• Bluegrass: Lexington, Frankfort, Lawrenceburg, Richmond, Georgetown
• Northern Kentucky: Covington, Florence, Highland Heights
• South central: Bowling Green, Somerset, London
• Eastern coalfields: Pikeville, Hazard, Prestonsburg, Ashland
• Purchase and western coalfield: Paducah, Madisonville, Hopkinsville

BEAD in Kentucky

NTIA's June 2023 BEAD table allocated Kentucky $1,086,172,536.86. Much of the remaining unserved area is in the Appalachian counties of the east, where hollows, ridges and narrow roads make every mile of fiber hard work, and in rural parts of the south and west.

Fiber in the mountains means a lot of cutting and re-spooling to get cable up steep pole lines and around obstacles. Crews need empties with drums big enough for their cable, often in small sizes that a light truck can carry up a narrow road. Those same crews leave empties behind when a section is done.

Matching Kentucky reels to Kentucky jobs

Most Kentucky buyers want reels for one of a handful of jobs. Electricians in Louisville, Lexington and northern Kentucky move building wire and MC cable between sites and want 24 to 42 inch reels a few at a time. Line contractors working for KU, LG&E, Kentucky Power and the co-ops want sets of 60 inch and larger reels for URD. Fiber crews in the east want small, light reels with a drum big enough for their cable, because a small truck is often all that will get up the road.

Industrial buyers along the river sometimes need a few very heavy reels for a plant shutdown or a feeder replacement. Those are the hardest to find quickly, so tell us early.

For any of them, send the cable's outside diameter, the footage per reel and the town. With three plants and a busy river corridor in the state, there is usually a matching lot within a short drive, and we'll tell you up front if there isn't.

Getting a truck to the reels

In the Bluegrass and along the interstates, most yards take a 53-foot trailer without trouble. In the eastern mountains, narrow, winding roads and tight yards can rule one out; a shorter flatbed or a hotshot may be the only safe choice. Winter ice and snow make mountain roads worse, and spring floods can close river-bottom yards in the west.

Tell us how the site is reached and what equipment you have, and we'll match the truck to it. We set pickups when the road and the truck are both ready.

1. 01

   Measure and count

   Flange x traverse x drum and a count for each size.

2. 02

   Photograph

   A wide shot, a reel stencil per size and close-ups of damage.

3. 03

   Describe the road

   Paved or gravel, grades, tight turns, low bridges and the yard's turning room.

4. 04

   Describe the loading

   Forklift, loader or none, and who will be there on the day.