International Steel Prices
Tenaris Plans to Increase Spending on US Operations
February 17, 2023
Tenaris SA will redirect funds initially slated for the acquisition of Benteler Steel & Tube Manufacturing Corp. in Shreveport, La., to its existing operations in the US.
“We will reorient our investment plan in the United States to achieve, through organic growth, the objective of strengthening our local industrial and logistics system,” Tenaris chairman and CEO Paolo Rocca said Feb. 16 in a fourth quarter earnings conference call.
Recall that Benteler North America Corp., the domestic subsidiary of Paderborn, Germany-based Bentler International AG, terminated its $460 million deal with Tenaris earlier this month.
In its Q4 results reported Feb. 15, Tenaris posted net income of $803 million, up 139% from $336 million in the same quarter of 2021, on net sales that increased 76% to $3.62 billion.
The Luxembourg-based pipe and tube maker logged North American tube sales of $2.11 billion in Q4, up 88% from the same year-ago period.
Rocca said that the company brought its Bay City seamless mill in Texas to full production capacity and ramped up production in the rest of the US. This included the restart of production of certain pipe, heat treating and finishing operations at its Baytown, Texas, plant and its Koppel facility in western Pennsylvania.
Looking forward, Rocca said tightness in the oil market and high demand for liquefied natural gas were driving growth in the oil and gas sector.
“We expect that the number of oil and gas wells drilled around the world in 2023 will increase, and this will drive global OCTG demand to exceed 16 million tons,” he said.
By Ethan Bernard, ethan@steelmarketupdate.com
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