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February 4th  - Projects Chesterfield Missouri - Boomerang Tube will invest in Texas plant
Backers of Chesterfield-based Boomerang Tube LLC will invest $200 million to establish a manufacturing plant in Texas. The funds are being provided by Access Industries, a New York-based firm led by Russian-American tycoon Len Blatnavik. The firm has owned most of the shares of Boomerang Tube since May 2008. The plant on the outskirts of Houston will be able to produce about $600 million a year worth of steel casing and tubings used by the North American oil and natural gas industry. Operations are expected to begin in August. The plant will employ 350 people. The cost of the plant is $153 million, Boomerang Tube said. Additional funds will be used for startup expenses and working capital. The launch of Boomerang Tube two years ago returns CEO Gregg Eisenberg to a business he exited when he left Maverick Tube in 2004. Luxembourg-based Tenaris SA bought Maverick Tube for $3.19 billion two years later. Nearly all of Eisenberg's 24 current employees worked for Maverick Tube, including Sudhakar Kanthamneni, who is the company's chief operating officer. Eisenberg said he had to put plans for the company on hold last year amid the recession and financial crisis, which caused energy prices to collapse and made capital difficult to obtain. But oil and natural gas drilling is rebounding and the combination of new and proposed duties on Chinese steel tube manufacturers may effectively keep them out of the U.S. market. China supplied about a third of the nation's steel tubing products in 2008. "Add the two (duties) together and you effectively put a 50 percent tariff on imports from China," Eisenberg said. Access Industries' holdings also include LyondellBasell Industries, the world's No. 3 independent chemical company, which is in bankruptcy, and a stake in Russian oil company TNK-BP.