Evraz to double capacity of threading line
The dust has barely settled on a new pipe-threading line at Evraz Inc. NA’s plant north of Red Deer, but the company is already preparing to expand it.
Evraz has announced plans to double the capacity of the premium threading line that it installed at the facility earlier this year. It said in a release that engineering design work for the project has been approved.
The company also said it will upgrade its Calgary pipe plant, boosting that facility’s heat treating capacity by more than 150 per cent.
Tigran Atayan, executive vice-president of Evraz’s tubular products group for North America, said the changes will help the company meet the growing demand of the oil industry, and give it a broader range of products.
Further details about the Red Deer plant’s expansion, including the number of jobs that might result, were not immediately available. But Melodie Ruse, senior manager of external communications with Evraz in Chicago, said the planning process was still in its early stages.
When Evraz announced in January 2011 its intention to develop the initial pipe-threading line, company officials said the equipment would allow the Red Deer plant to finish pipe products in-house, rather than ship them elsewhere. They also said that pipe produced elsewhere might be finished at the local plant.
That new line was expected to add about 20 jobs at the plant, which at the time employed approximately 150.
Evraz’s other North America pipe-making facilities are in Camrose, Regina; Portland, Ore.; and Pueblo, Colo.
Evraz Inc. NA is a subsidiary of Evraz plc, one of the largest vertically integrated steel and mining businesses in the world. It purchased Ipsco Inc., including the Red Deer pipe plant, in 2008 from Swedish steel company SSAB.
hrichards@reddeeradvocate.com
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