‘TEAM EFFORT’
The Port’s new acquisition will bring employment to the region
The Port of Caddo-Bossier beat more than 100 applicants from 13 states to land a manufacturing facility, which will make products for various industries. Last October, Benteler Steel/Tube GmbH, announced its selection of The Port as the site for its new $900 million facility. According to local officials, the choice was based on teamwork among the local partners.
“It’s an incredible project, and it took our entire community and state to accomplish,” said Eric England, executive director of The Port. “Without the teamwork, we wouldn’t have been able to pull an accomplishment like this off.” The facility will be Benteler’s first U.S. production facility, said Angela Kunwald of the company’s Salzburg, Austria, communication department. Benteler Steel/Tube specializes in manufacturing and processing seamless hot-rolled steel tubes and seamless cold-drawn precision steel tubes, serving international customers in the automotive, OCTG/line pipe, heat transfer, hydraulics/precision engineering and construction industries.
The facility will make products for the exploration and transportation of oil and natural gas. It will also supply products for secondary markets in power generation and mechanical applications.
Matthias Jaeger, president and chief executive officer of Benteler, said “With the growing demand for high-quality steel tubes for exploratory drilling in the U.S. and Louisiana’s proximity and access to energy customers, Benteler Steel/Tube’s Caddo Parish plant is poised to play an important role in meeting U.S. domestic energy needs.”
North Louisiana Economic Partnership President Scott Martinez said the site selection was a very competitive international process. “It really was a team effort. ... There were lots of groups that worked hard to make this project happen.”
Caddo and Bossier parishes, the Greater Bossier Economic Foundation, The Port, Bossier Parish Community College as well as the state partnered to attract Benteler’s attention.
“I can’t emphasize enough the assistance of Bossier Parish Community College and them stepping up to the plate and the state providing funding to train the workforce that’s going to be needed at Benteler,” Martinez said.
Bossier Parish Community College is in the beginning phase of constructing a new $22 million facility on its campus that will be the primary training location for Benteler’s local operation.
“It’s going to be an approximately 60,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, training center that will include about 25,000 square feet of high bay, highly flexible, open training space,” said BPCC Chancellor Dr. James Henderson. “The beauty of our design, though, is that it will be flexible. Once we have met their initial needs that space will be available for any new employers that come in, existing employers that need additional workforce.”
The college worked with the Louisiana Department of Economic Develop through their FastStart program to begin designing the training programs BPCC will provide to Benteler, Henderson said.
The state of Louisiana, the Red River Waterway Commission and The Port
Commission are providing financial support for the project.
“As a region, Shreveport-Bossier has had some contraction in our manufacturing and construction sector in the past 24 months with the closure of the General Motors facility, with layoffs at Libby [Glass],” he said. “This is a real boost, considering we had those negatives, if you will, in our industrial sector. This will really help to make up for some of those losses.”
“The successes of these projects tend to spawn off more similar projects,” Henderson said. “Other employers will say, ‘I like how [the partnership was] able to deliver for this employer. Maybe that’s a region that we want to explore for our expansion or our relocation.’ So, it’s incumbent upon us to deliver our promise, and I think we are positioned well to be able to do that.”
The majority of the hiring at the new plant will begin in 2014. Benteler has begun the process of filling key positions for the new plant. Details are posted on its website, www.BentelerJobsInLouisiana.com.
– Joe Todaro
