TMK IPSCO to Temporarily Shut Down Ambridge Mill For a Month in Line With $15 Million Renovation Plan
06/19/2015 - According to a report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, TMK IPSCO said it will shut down its Ambridge, Pa., USA, seamless tube plant for a little more than a month this summer to make $15 million in improvements.
The improvements — rebuilding its rotary hearth furnace and installing a new piercer housing — are part of a long series of renovations and improvements that parent company TMK has approved since the Russian steel giant bought the plant and other IPSCO North American assets for $1.7 billion in 2008.
For most of the time since TMK bought the Ambridge plant, it has been run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, employing 380 people on four shifts, to fill the growing number of orders from the natural gas industry. The pipe the plant makes then heads to threading plants in three possible locations — Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas — depending on which oil or gas fields they are bound for.
Last year’s drop in oil and gas prices led to the first slowdown in the industry that TMK has experienced here. It caused the plant to lay off about 10 percent of its staff in Ambridge as well as Koppel and a threading plant TMK bought in 2010 in Brookfield, Ohio, USA.
“We’ve been waiting for the market to do this” and slow down, said Frank Corona, manager of the Ambridge plant. “So when the market does come back, we’ll be ready to go fully.”
Click here to continue reading the full article.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
For most of the time since TMK bought the Ambridge plant, it has been run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, employing 380 people on four shifts, to fill the growing number of orders from the natural gas industry. The pipe the plant makes then heads to threading plants in three possible locations — Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas — depending on which oil or gas fields they are bound for.
Last year’s drop in oil and gas prices led to the first slowdown in the industry that TMK has experienced here. It caused the plant to lay off about 10 percent of its staff in Ambridge as well as Koppel and a threading plant TMK bought in 2010 in Brookfield, Ohio, USA.
“We’ve been waiting for the market to do this” and slow down, said Frank Corona, manager of the Ambridge plant. “So when the market does come back, we’ll be ready to go fully.”
Click here to continue reading the full article.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
