Kongsberg to Build a Counter-Drone Plant in Pomerania for Poland's SAN Programme — Over PLN 200 Million, Series Production From 2028
Kongsberg, 13 October 2026
Key points
- Kongsberg announced on 13 October a production and sustainment plant for counter-unmanned-aircraft systems in Pomerania near the Tri-City of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot, at a site not yet named: more than PLN 200 million, about EUR 45 million, series production from the first half of 2028, more than 100 long-term jobs at full capacity
- Eirik Lie, president and chief executive: "The new facility will support Polish industry and defence capabilities and strengthen KONGSBERG's presence in Poland"
- The plant serves the NOK 16 billion contract signed with Poland's Armaments Agency on 30 January 2026 under the SAN programme: 18 counter-UAS batteries combining 35 mm, 30 mm and 12.7 mm guns with missiles and interceptor drones, with Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and Advanced Protection Systems as partners; the January release gave no delivery schedule
- Kongsberg said in January it would expand manufacturing capacity in Poland under the contract; the October release adds that the plant is to serve other European customers
Nine months after signing a NOK 16 billion counter-drone contract in Warsaw, Kongsberg has priced the Polish factory it promised: EUR 45 million, with series output from 2028.
SAN is Poland's programme for layered counter-drone batteries, and the January contract made Kongsberg its prime with two Polish partners, the state group PGZ and APS. The battery mix in the release, three gun calibres plus missiles and interceptor drones under one fire control, is the gun-and-effector layer below the Patriot and IBCS architecture Poland is buying from the United States. The plant is described as production and sustainment: both the making of systems and their maintenance are to sit in Pomerania, which is where the partner firms and the Navy's air-defence customers are. What the release does not give, and what Signal No. 167 recorded as missing, is a site, a delivery schedule for the 18 batteries, and how much of each battery the Polish line will build.
Series production from 2028 dates the start of Polish content; anything the Army accepts before then is built elsewhere. That is arithmetic from the release, not a finding, and it sets the marker: the acceptance date of the first SAN battery against the first half of 2028. If a battery is fielded in 2027, SAN's early deliveries came from Kongsberg's Norwegian lines and the plant is a sustainment and second-batch facility; if the first acceptance follows the plant's opening, the programme waited for the factory.
