Shale Boom: Texas Company to build manufacturing facility and hire 100 people
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - More jobs are coming to the Mahoning Valley courtesy of the shale industry.
A ground breaking ceremony was held on Tuesday for Exterran Energy Solutions. The Texas based company will build a $13.2 million manufacturing facility on a 20-acre parcel of land at the Salt Springs Industrial Park in Youngstown.
The manufacturing facility is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and the company's customers are the oil and gas producers in the area according to Daniel Schlanger, Senior Vice President of Operations Services for Exterran. Schlanger says the move is an indication that the shale industry is expected to have a major impact here.
"Absolutely! The industry is clearly moving here. There's a lot of investment going on here. Drilling and production of oil and gas should increase pretty substantially, we want to meet that demand," Schlanger said.
The Youngstown facility will be similar to Exterran's operations in Texas, and the company expects to begin hiring 100 people sometime later this year so they can begin producing products by 2013.
"We're looking for skilled welders, as well as unskilled laborers. We think they will be high paying jobs, and our goal is to make it an employee friendly place to work," Schlanger said.
State officials say Exterran could be considered part of a supply chain for the shale boom and all signs seem to indicate that more businesses that are part of the supply chain will likely want to have a presence here in the Mahoning Valley.
Ohio Lieutenant Governor, Mary Taylor says, "They're choosing to come to Ohio from Houston and we competed against West Virginia and Pennsylvania and they choose Ohio. And I think that announcement itself demonstrates the opportunities we have here in Ohio."
Youngstown Mayor, Chuck Sammarone; Economic Development Director, Sharon Woodberry; as well as the Chamber of Commerce offered Extrerran the 20 acre parcel of land to build on, and provided a 75-percent tax abatement to make sure the deal was even more attractive.
The city now hopes it's an investment that will pay off for years to come.