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August 30th  - Projects Monterrey, Mexico - Prolamsa seeks site for U.S. Tube Mill
Productos Laminados de Monterrey, S.A. de C.V. (PROLAMSA) has announced plans to expand its U.S. operations by establishing its first mechanical and structural steel tubing manufacturing facility in the United States by the second half of 2009. PROLAMSA’s headquarters are located in Monterrey, Mexico, 150 miles south of Laredo, Texas. Founded in 1954, PROLAMSA claims to be one of the largest producers of mechanical and structural steel tubing in Mexico and exports its products to Central, South and North America. The company sells in the United States through its Houston subsidiary Prolamsa Inc. The target of an antidumping suit filed last year by a group of U.S. manufacturers of light-walled rectangular pipe and tube, PROLAMSA was assessed a dumping margin of 5.73 percent by U.S. trade officials in June. The main impetus for the new U.S. plant was to improve delivery times and customer service, which have been more difficult because of logistics, but the dumping dispute moved up the company’s plans, says Jean-Marie Diederichs, Prolamsa general manager. “We cannot afford to have legal issues stopping shipments and making us unable to serve our customers.” The location of the new greenfield plant is yet to be determined, but will be in the southern U.S. near major transportation arteries to facilitate shipping product all over the country. Prolamsa will produce its entire mechanical and structural tubing product line at the new facility, and plans to add a larger structural mill in later phases of the project. Diederichs declined to cite the mill’s specific capacity, but says “within two years we will produce in the U.S. what we are producing now in Mexico for the U.S. market.” Currently, 30 to 35 percent of the output from Prolamsa’s Monterrey mill is sold in the United States. Prolamsa does not plan to change its distribution formula with the move, he notes. The company will continue to distribute about 70 percent of its products through service centers. At the same time it expands to the north into the U.S., Prolamsa plans to seek new business further south in Mexico, utilizing some of the capacity opened up by the shift to its new plant. “We are expanding our warehouses in Mexico, going further south into new markets. This strategy has been very successful for us,” says Diederichs.