Tenaris to shut down Baytown pipe mill

Pipemaker Tenaris is expanding shutdowns of its US facilities to include its Baytown, Texas, threading plant as the Covid-19-related downturn in the energy industry deepens.

The Luxembourg-based company said it would temporarily suspend operations at the Baytown facility just weeks after it announced the layoffs of 223 workers at the facility as it restructures its US-based operations.

The move comes less than a month after Tenaris announced it would idle its 600,000 st/yr electric arc furnace (EAF) billet mill in Koppel, Pennsylvania, and its 496,000 st/yr seamless pipe mill in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

Tenaris is among many steel companies serving the North American oil and gas industry that have been hammered by the downturn in the energy industry, with WTI fob Houston falling by about two-thirds since the beginning of the year.

US Steel idled its pipe mills in Texas and Ohio due to the oil downturn, curtailing a combined 780,000 st/yr of oil country tubular goods (OCTG) production.

By Rye Druzin