Brilex, Valerus Celebrate Joint Venture's Success
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Success has many parents and nearly all who played a role in the promising joint venture between Brilex Industries LLC and Houston-based Valerus were on hand Wednesday to congratulate the Benyo brothers and Pete Lane.
Officeholders or their aides, economic development officials, bankers and academics watched and applauded as Brian Benyo, CEO of Brilex, used a pair of oversized scissors to snip the royal-blue ribbon to mark the official opening of the 50,000-square-foot plant at 101 Andrews Ave.
Holding the ribbon were Thomas P. Humphries, president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, Mayor Charles P. Sammarone, Alex Benyo, vice president of Brilex, Lane, CEO of Valerus, Nick Sajatovic and Bill Bowers, also with Valerus. Bowers is vice president of production equipment.
The Benyo brothers own Brilex, which they founded in 1996, and Valerus is one of the world’s leading providers of energy infrastructure in 26 countries. It provides the pipe and equipment needed to ship and process natural gas and oil. Much of the equipment Brilex makes on Andrews Avenue will go to wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in eastern Ohio and western and central Pennsylvania.
“We saw the Marcellus and Utica as great growth opportunities for us,” Lane said, “and we came to Pennsylvania two years ago in a service capacity. What became clear is that we needed a manufacturing presence here and we needed to do it in a way that made us locals as quickly as possible.”
With the joint venture, the Brilex plant has added 10 jobs to the Youngstown economy with the promise of 20 more next year, Brian Benyo noted. Quoting his wife, Benyo explained the plant “is where things get built. We make the things that make the things,” in this case the components of the infrastructure that processes natural gas and oil so they can be used as fuels.
In his remarks, the president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, Thomas Humphries, marveled at “the amount of concrete poured here in the last year and a half, praising Brilex for the $1.5 million invested in the site and the potential annual payroll of $1.2 million.
Valerus will buy the output of the plant on Andrews Avenue, much of which consists of pipe to deliver natural gas and oil to plants where the components will be separated and processed. Brilex also provides fiberglass filters – high-pressure horizontal coalescing filters -- its employees install inside the pipe that cleanse the gas of impurities.
”Each of these products is a building block for the infrastructure required to transmit oil and gas, said Bill Bowers, Valerus vice president for production equipment. So in addition to adding manufacturing jobs at Brilex, installation and service jobs associated with the products will benefit the region, he pointed out.
In the last two years, Lane noted, Valerus has added 500 to its payrolls. It employs 1,300 worldwide. It was founded in 2004.
In his remarks, the CEO of Valerus iterated a common hope, that the United States can become energy-independent by 2020. By relying more on natural gas produced in Texas, North Dakota and this region and less on foreign petroleum, it is feasible, he said afterward, noting that an infrastructure to take advantage of the abundance of natural gas must further developed.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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