`Sharon Tube has big plans`

$56 million project would add 110 jobs

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MILL WILL BE BUILT IN HENRY EVANS PARK

By Michael Roknick
Herald Business Editor

Sharon Tube Co. on Wednesday unveiled a $56 million expansion, the biggest project tackled in the pipe and tube producer’s 70-year history.

The project is expected to add 110 jobs over three years to Sharon Tube’s payroll of 450, said Lee Hooper, president and chief executive officer.

The bulk of the investment - $50 million - will be in a new mill to be built in Henry Evans Industrial Park in Farrell and Wheatland. The company has inked a deal to buy 11 acres and has reserved the right of first refusal to buy 19 additional acres from Shenango Valley Industrial Development Corp., the park’s non-profit developer. Sharon Tube also will negotiate to buy an adjoining 4 acres from Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Talks are under way between Sharon Tube and an undisclosed company on a joint venture to build a weld mill on the 19-acre site.

Under the first phase of a two-phase project, a 71,000- square-foot building will be constructed for a mill to produce cold-drawn pipe and tubing.

In the cold-drawing process, pipe and tube are drawn over a metal bar and through a die. It results in tubes and pipes of desired wall thicknesses and diameters. Finished products meet tolerances of plus or minus 1/2,000th of an inch - less than the width of two human hairs. The mill, which is scheduled to begin operating in late 1999, will produce mechanical tubing up to 4.5 inches in diameter. That is larger tubing than the company currently produces and will also have thicker walls. The mill will enable the company to enter the market for hydraulic cylinders, Hooper said.

Hydraulic cylinders are used in such products as car carriers, farm equipment and elevators. At the same time, a 32,000-square-foot building will be erected and equipped at a cost of $6 million at the company’s Niles, Ohio, operation. A furnace and other machinery will be installed to finish tubing and pipe produced at the new Pennsylvania plant.

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Updated July 14, 1998
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