Why Shale Gas Matters to U.S. Manufacturing

Why is it so important the oil and gas industry succeed with shale gas development? For one, manufacturers in wide-ranging sectors are reaping the rewards from historically low gas prices and demand for products used in gas drilling.

The other major issue: jobs. The shale boom could create one million manufacturing jobs by 2025, according to a December 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers. Other studies contend that figure may be vastly inflated. Still, shale gas-related activities are picking up.

One of the more highly publicized success stories is in Youngstown, Ohio, where V&M Star has invested $650 million in a new seamless steel pipe mill to supply the industry.

The plant site is conveniently located near the Marcellus and Utica shale fields, V&M Star President and COO Joel Mastervich told people attending the Ohio Energy Management conference in Columbus Feb. 21.

The plant, which is expected to be completed later this year, will employ more than 350 people. V&M Star's growing presence in Youngstown may help the city in more ways than job creation. The once-thriving Ohio steel town located about equal distance between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, has become synonymous with Rust Belt decay over the years.

V&M Star, a subsidiary of French steel tubing manufacturer Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes SA, is doing its part to help transform that image, Mastervich says. As an example, he points to a picture on a projector screen of a deteriorating abandoned house in the forefront of the new mill site.

"Nothing repels investment and repels the new people we need to hire more than blight," Mastervich says. "We talked over and over about the importance of investment and trying to clean up the community that we work in as a part of that."