Oxane Materials Inc. of Houston will open a manufacturing plant in Van Buren that will employ 50 making nanomaterials to support the oil and gas industry.
The initial $15 million for major modification of a building on Van Buren’s Industrial Park Drive is the first in what company officials said would be a final investment of up to $32 million.
Carl Sorrell, vice president of manufacturing for Oxane, said Monday that the plant will open sometime in the summer with 50 initial employees. If the plant is expanded, the company said it may employ as many as 300 by 2014.
Oxane Materials makes nanoparticles that are pumped into the ground during mining so more oil or natural gas can be processed from wells.
The Associated Press reported in the summer major oil companies continue funding nanotechnology relating to oil and gas exploration since the technology holds the promise of increasing the amount of product extracted from the earth. Oil companies typically recover onlyabout one in three barrels of oil from their fields.
Sorrell said that increasing domestic mining operations, such as the Fayetteville Shale Play in north-central Arkansas, is driving the demand for the nanoparticles, called proppants, that Oxane Materials makes.
“It is a very environmentally friendly product, in its manufacture, its use and the product itself,” Sorrell said. “Sand is the most commonly used proppant.”
Oxane Materials makes two trademarked ultralight ceramic proppants, OxFrac and OxBall, both of which will be made in Van Buren,Sorrell said.
Although the plant is in Van Buren, Cheryl Garner, vice president of economic development for the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the result is a reason for regional celebration.
“It’s a win because we are working together,” Garner said Monday.
The unemployment rate for the Fort Smith Metropolitan Statistical area, which includes three Arkansas and two Oklahoma counties, was 7.8 percent in October, the most recent data available. About 230,000 people live in the statistical area.
Officials from Van Buren, the Van Buren Chamber of Commerce, Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission worked together to winnow through about 80 possible locations for the Oxane plant, Garner said.
Sorrell said a vast majority of the company’s employees will be hired from the local area. He declined to give an average salary for the plant, saying he didn’t have those numbers available during the telephone interview Monday.
“I can say that it will be above the area average,” Sorrell said.
The Oxane Materials decision is the third in recent weeks to benefit area workers.
The Whirlpool Corp. said on Dec. 15 that 400 laid-off workers at its Fort Smithrefrigerator plant are being called back and should be on the job by early 2010. The plant now employs about 1,000 people, down from about 4,600 in 2006, before the company moved part of its production to Mexico.
A company spokesman told the Democrat-Gazette that a shift will be added to the production schedule by the end of January. The plant eventually may need another 100 or more employees, which could require new hiring.
On Dec. 18, Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas Inc. said it will create 400 jobs when it relocates a wind turbine assembly plant to the Fort Smith region from Japan sometime in the next two years.
However a patent dispute could threaten the project. General Electric Co. contends that Mitsubishi and its parent companies have infringed on GE turbine patents.
The claim won an early victory in August but is under review by the U.S. International Trade Commission. If the six-member commission sides with GE, it is likely to ban importation of Mitsubishi’s turbine parts.
The commission is expected to rule on the matter on Jan. 8.
The $100 million plant to be located just south of Fort Smith was expected to be operational by 2012.
Information for this article was contributed by Laurie Whalen of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Business, Pages 23 on 12/29/2009