Tianjin Pipe Co. expects to move into the first phase of its new mill near Gregory this summer, a company official said.
TPCO America, which now has just six full-time workers, is in the process of hiring up to 35 more for the initial phase of the USD 1 billion plant, Director of Administration J.J. Johnston said.
The first phase, occupying 185,000 square feet, will take the existing pipe and remanufacture it. Workers would increase up to 120 employees by the end of the first full year of production, Johnston said.
TPCO interviewed the top 60 job candidates at a hiring fare in November. A few of the positions are tough to fill, requiring employees with steel manufacturing experience and fluency in multiple languages.
The entire 1.6-million-square-foot plant — a footprint the size of about 28 football fields — could be finished by 2015, Johnston said.
"Our strong commitment is to hire locally whenever we can,” he said.
The plant is considered to be the largest single Chinese investment in an American manufacturing facility.
At full operation, about 800 workers will recycle scrap steel and mix it with iron to produce 500,000 metric tons of seamless steel pipe each year, which is used as casing in the oil and gas industry.
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Tianjin Pipe Co. expects to move into the first phase of its new mill near Gregory this summer, a company official said. 
