Tenaris is gearing up to reactivate its heat treatment and finishing lines at its Koppel, Pennsylvania, plant to streamline the flow of seamless product at its facilities in the northeast.
The heat treatment line is part of the manufacturing process which gives pipe their required metallurgical properties for enhanced performance in oil and gas wells. The line, which had been inactive during the 2020 downturn, is located at Tenaris’s melt shop in Koppel, which started producing steel in June 2021 following a year-long investment of more than $15M.
“With the lines back up and running, it allows our Koppel steel shop, our seamless mill in Ambridge, PA, and finishing operations at Brookfield, OH, to more effectively process pipe and completes the management of goods in our northeast circuit,” said Luca Zanotti, Tenaris US President.
Tenaris will be carrying out an investment of about $3.5M, performing updates in IT and automation systems, non-destructive testing equipment and in maintenance activities to ensure equipment on the line is in a ready state for an April 2022 start. Tenaris is looking to bring about 75 employees onboard to run the heat treatment and finishing lines. Production volumes at the company’s Ambridge seamless mill is picking up, and as a result, so will activity at the Brookfield plant where the company plans to grow the local team by about 70 to support the increase in threading and finishing of pipe from Ambridge.
“From our offices to the manufacturing floor and throughout our service centers, our team has been working incredibly hard to scale up operations in a short amount of time. This has been a strategic reboot of our US industrial network to best serve a stronger market with flexibility and precision,” said Zanotti.
Tenaris has expanded its workforce in the US by 1,200 employees since late 2020 and has been increasing and restarting production at its at its Bay City, Houston, Baytown, and Conroe, TX, facilities, as well operations in Koppel and Ambridge, PA, and Brookfield, OH. The price of hot rolled coil also made it viable to boost production at its welded operations in Hickman, AR, announced last month. By the end of 2022, Tenaris expects to hire an additional 700 employees as part of its US ramp up.
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