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First Pipe Produced at V&M Star's New Plant
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – More than two-and-a-half years in the making, the first pipes manufactured from V&M Star's new $650 million plant rolled off the production line last week, the company announced Monday.
V&M Star, a subsidiary of Vallourec, said the first set of continuous production of pipe was completed on Oct. 29, and the first commercial sales from the mill should be delivered early next year.
The new pipe mill is equipped with some of the latest technological manufacturing capabilities, the company said, and was constructed to produce small-diameter oil country tubular goods, or OCTG, pipe for the oil and gas market. The plant pierced its first billet July 29, and over the next several months commissioned equipment on the rolling mill.
V&M's tubular products are integral to developing oil and gas exploration of the Utica shale in eastern Ohio and the Marcellus shale, which stretches across most of Pennsylvania.
The new plant has the initial production capacity of 350,000 tons, the company reported.
V&M officials announced in February 2010 the company's intention to build the $650 million pipe mill near V&M's existing Youngstown operations – part of the former Brier Hill Works of the old Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.
The plant is expected to employ about 350 people at full capacity. In September, V&M President Joel Mastervich said the company had hired about 90% of its workforce, most of the employees from the Mahoning and Shenango valleys.
V&M's market has opened wide in this region since large energy companies started flocking to eastern Ohio to drill in the Utica shale.
Mastervich, speaking to an audience at the Youngstown Ohio Utica and Natural Gas Expo downtown in September, said new technology that allows energy companies to drill horizontally through tightly packed shale formations 7,000 feet deep has increased demand in the pipe market. The deeper and longer these companies drill, the more pipe they require.
More importantly, these companies are also going to need the high-quality, smaller diameter pipe, which is what the new Youngstown mill manufactures.
V&M is also active in some of the larger shale plays across the country, including the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford plays in Texas, and the Bakken shale in North Dakota.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.