Alternative Fuels a Boon for Bristol Metals

BY GARY B. GRAY
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
BRISTOL, Tenn. –  Bristol Metals, which makes welded, stainless steel pipe, is reaping benefits from a global economy that needs to store, deliver and clean alternative and standard fuels. 

Thanks to that demand, the company last week tucked another $1 million worth of investments into a five-year-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with the city’s Industrial Development Board. The agreement, now in its second year, includes investments totaling $7.8 million in new construction and equipment.

Bristol Metals recently spent an additional $600,000 to construct a 9,750-square-foot building. The structure, which will add to its production capacity, was completed last week.

The company, off of Weaver Pike at 390 Bristol Metals Road, also spent $400,000 to manufacture equipment, including overhead cranes, pipe welding equipment and powered conveyer systems, that will be used at the new building.

With these additions, the company now has a total of 290,000 square feet of production space, and the expansion is not likely to stop there.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” said Mike Boling, Bristol Metals’ president. “We have 315 employees now, and the expansion will likely add at least a dozen to that.”

During the term of the agreement, the company can make capital investments without the burden of paying added property taxes. And in this case, the board approved rolling the $1 million investment into the existing agreement, instead of devising a new plan.

The board will hold ownership of the new buildings and equipment – some constructed and/or purchased over the first two years – until the terms of the agreement are fulfilled.

The company also is currently in negotiations for a large contract that could spur further expansion, including another 50,000 square feet of production space and the addition of another 150 employees, Boling said.

“Of course, we can’t disclose any information, but it is one single contract – a very big contract,” he said.

Recent expansion has come mainly from an increased demand for exactly what the company has to offer: welded, stainless steel pipe.

“In the last three years, private U.S. companies have been importing large quantities of liquid gas,” Boling said. “When it’s turned back into vapor, it’s transferred through stainless steel pipes. We happen to be the country’s largest producer of stainless steel welded pipe.”

Another boon for the company has been the increasing demand for and use of ethanol, a fuel that requires distillation. The tool used for the job: large stainless steel pipe. Bristol Metals, started in 1941, is a division of Synalloy Corp., a holding company based in Spartanburg, S.C.

The Bristol company produces stainless steel pipe for use in the chemical, petro-chemical, paper, food processing and other industries requiring corrosion-resistant pipe, such as the liquid natural gas, coal scrubbers and ethanol markets.

“Coal-fired power plants are required to reduce emissions, and the most widely used equipment to accomplish that is stainless steel pipe.” Boling said.

During each of the past two years, company employees have received an average of 15 percent of their annual wages in the form of profit sharing, he added.

“All employees are represented by three separate unions, except administration,” Boling said. “Our starting pay is $10.60 [per hour] and the scale reaches to $15.50.” 

The board and the city have partnered with Bristol Metals for several projects over the past few years. 

“This is a long-established company that has created many jobs for the area since coming to Bristol,” said Mike Sparks, deputy city manager/economic development. “They decided to go through a major expansion about five years ago and they have invested about $15 million over the last three years.”
Sparks said the company’s expansion will “lead to some pretty major contracts, and help the community in the long run.”

Meanwhile, the state gave the company a nod in February when it awarded a $2.4 million grant to the city for construction of an access road to serve the new 224-acre Partnership Park II and the Bristol Metals plant.

“We utilized their [Bristol Metals] investment to use as a catalyst for us to get the new road,” Sparks said. 

The Tennessee Department of Transportation will hire a contractor to engineer and construct about 5,000 feet of roadway to serve the existing plant and the first phase of the new regional industrial/business park being built by the NETWORKS Sullivan Partnership.

The road should be completed near the end of 2009, Boling said.

“Right now, it goes through a mobile home park,” he said. “We’ve asked for years for a new road. It’s just gotten to the point where our suppliers need wider and safer access.”

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