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Vallourec's 'Integrated' Process Explained at Expo
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Nearly 1,000 people spent part of Thursday walking through the aisles at the Covelli Centre exhibition floor, where they looked at the displays of 95 vendors and sponsors eager to capture new business from the Youngstown Ohio Utica & Natural Gas Conference & Expo.
The daylong trade show, which cost $100 per person to attend, is the third Young conference convened by the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
On the main stage, industry executives took turns presenting what their companies do and how they do it – and why shale exploration has become so profitable.
Appropriately, as the emerging shale industry brings to the Mahoning Valley millions of investment dollars unforeseen even five years ago, first to speak was the president of the company that brought the biggest economic development project to the Mahoning Valley in 50 years.
M. Judson Wallace, president of Vallourec Star, used the occasion to thank the company’s employees, local trades and contractors, suppliers, elected officials and the business community for their support.
“I would like to thank all the people involved in this billion-dollar project,” Wallace said.
“I’ve been particularly impressed with the quality of the skilled workforce,” he added.
At the height of construction for the new pipe mill, Vallourec – then V&M Star – employed more than 1,200 construction workers.
Vallourec’s new pipe mill, its second at the Youngstown site, was dedicated June 12. The new mill delivered its first pipe in December and will ramp-up throughout 2013. It employs 350.
The company’s manufacturing complex here is the only integrated pipe mill in the United States, Wallace noted, and it’s perfectly situated geographically to take advantage of exploration in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays. Moreover, he said, the complex exemplifies Vallourec’s corporate strategy: “More premium, more local, more competitive.”
Wallace took his audience through Vallourec Star’s integrated process to make pipe at its complex here, “from scrap metal to rig site.’ It begins with procuring and melting scrap, refining its elements, solidifying the steel into bars, cutting it into billets and cooling it.
The material then goes to one of the two pipe mills at the site where the billets are handled, heated again, pierced, stretched and reduced and cooled a second time before being transported to the storage rooms.
Next comes finishing the pipe at Vallourec’s new finishing mill, also at its Youngstown complex. Here the pipe is heat-treated, inspected, threaded and shipped to customers.
“At any one time, there are approximately 7.5 miles of pipe in the rolling process,” Wallace said.
“The water quench system utilizes 12,000 gallons of water per minute to harden pipes – enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool in one hour,” he said. And the water is completely recycled through the new mill’s water treatment plant.
With the new pipe mill, Vallourec’s annual pipe-rolling capacity at the complex has grown to one million metric tons and 200,000 metric tons of finishing capability.
Most important, Wallace said, “We now have the capability to make pipe in full range – from 2 3/8 inches to 10¼. And we can supply pipe for offshore and onshore drilling.”
Having two pipe mills at the complex gives Vallourec “size-range overlap – 5 to 7 inches,” he said. “The overlap from both pipe mills is ideal for shale applications.”
Wallace was followed on the main stage by presentations from executives of FMC Technologies and IGS Energy CNG Services.
For more YOUNG 2013 coverage, watch today’s Daily BUZZ webcast and check back here Friday morning.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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