Tuesday, June 22, 2010
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
V&M Star and Vallourec, its parent company, will break ground Monday in a ceremony to officially begin the construction of its $650 million expansion project.
The hot-rolling, seamless pipe mill will create 400 construction jobs.
When the plant opens, there will be 230 employees working directly for V&M and 120 contract workers.
The new mill is expected to begin production at the end of next year with full production by the end of 2012.
The plant is being built near V&M’s current facility on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Youngstown.
Those scheduled at the Monday groundbreaking include: Philippe Crouzet, chairman of the management board of Vallourec, a Paris-based company; Skip Herald, U.S. Vallourec North American managing director; V&M Star President Joel Mastervich; as well as Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, and Girard Mayor James Melfi, all Democrats.
Also, more than 100 V&M employees will be at the invitation-only event.
V&M makes seamless tubes for the gas and oil industry.
V&M purchased North Star Steel’s pipe division in Youngstown and Houston in 2002. The facility is the former site of Youngstown Sheet & Tube’s Brier Hill Works.
There are 444 employees at the plant, according to V&M.