Friday, February 28, 2014
VAM USA would invest $81.5M in new facility
YOUNGSTOWN
A decision by a Vallourec Star sister company to invest $81.5 million to construct another facility in Youngstown “looks promising” and should be made in the next 30 days, said city Finance Director David Bozanich.
The city’s board of control voted Thursday in favor of a development deal with VAM USA LLC on a tax abatement, $369,000 for sanitary and storm-water sewer infrastructure, and a lease/purchase option for the land for the construction of a steel-pipe threading facility in the Ohio Works Business Park.
“We’ve provided the right incentives, and we hope to get a positive decision out of them,” Bozanich said.
The final details of the tax abatement need to be resolved as well as whether VAM would lease the property from the city or buy it.
The former Genmak Steel site, where VAM wants to construct the facility, has a small amount of soil contamination, Bozanich said. If the contamination exists, the city will clean it up and own the land, he said. If the soil isn’t an issue, VAM would buy the property, he said.
In a statement, the company said, “VAM USA LLC, the leading supplier of premium threaded connectors for the oil and gas industry in the USA, confirms today that it is in active negotiations with the city of Youngstown, Ohio, to secure property for a potential pipe processing facility on Ohio Works Drive.”
The company plans to hire 84 full-time workers by next year with an estimated payroll of $2.9 million to $3.7 million, according to its tax abatement application. That number is likely to grow, Bozanich said.
This facility would be about a mile from Vallourec Star’s $1.1 billion expansion mill that opened in October 2012.
VAM USA is a joint venture company between Vallourec, Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metals Corp. and Sumitomo Corp.