Get set for more Texas steel, jobs

Abbott, in India, touts $500M Baytown project

A $500 million expansion of a Baytown steel mill will bring 500 jobs, and possibly hundreds more, to the Houston region as JSW Steel USA replaces decades-old equipment and adds a furnace that will allow it to favor U.S.-made steel over imports.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced the expansion plans alongside executives of parent company JSW Group, which is based in India, where the governor is on a weeklong trip to discuss trade. Abbott said the new jobs in Baytown will command an average salary of $65,000 and expand the workforce there to about 1,000, with the mill filling hundreds more contract positions during a two-year project.

“Made in Texas is a powerful label,” he said.

Abbott said during a conference call that he offered JSW Steel USA a $3.4 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund, a coffer for deal-closing business incentives, to expand the mill’s plate and pipe mill unit.

Abbott and JSW signed an memorandum of agreement on the Baytown project on Monday in India. Approval by the U.S. Envi-

ronmental Protection Agency is pending, but work and hiring are under way, JSW Steel USA chief executive John Hritz said.

The project will transform the already massive mill, which has been producing plate since the 1970s for natural gas and oil pipelines.

The expansion will include updating the plate mill and adding a furnace that will turn molten steel scrap and iron into steel slab. The furnace will liberate the plant from is reliance on slab shipped in from Mexico, Brazil and India, and instead allow the company to make its own steel, Hritz said.

The mill already supplies plate for oil and gas pipes, ships and giant wind turbine towers. The multimillion-dollar upgrade will allow it to also supply government agencies like the military.

“We are going to make history here in Baytown,” said Hritz, who began his steel career in Youngstown, Ohio. “We don’t have to worry about the imports coming in because we will be able to beat them at their own game.”

The deal comes at a tumultuous time for foreign and U.S. steel manufacturers, as they grapple with an industry downturn, newly announced tariffs and efforts to shrink the country’s reliance on foreign manufacturing and commodities.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump shook foreign trade partners and the U.S. oil and gas industry when he announced a tax of 25 percent on imported steel and a 10 percent tax on imported aluminum.

While two of JSW’s main suppliers, Brazil and Mexico, are exempted from tariffs, another source, India, was not.

The planned Baytown expansion has been in the works for nearly a year, driven by aging equipment and not politics, but Hritz said Monday’s announcement was fortuitous nonetheless.

“This is exactly what the Trump administration wants to see,” he said.

Abbott’s India tour was aimed at expanding trade and business opportunities between Texas and one of the world’s largest economies.

The governor is working with Indian firms to increase shipments from Texas to India of liquefied natural gas. He also met with executives from Mahindra & Mahindra, a Mumbai-based multinational conglomerate holding company whose interests include aerospace, automotive, energy and other industries. Twenty percent of the company’s sales are in Texas, and Houston is the company’s North American headquarters.

Abbott said he thanked Mahindra for the company’s $1.5 million donation to the Houston community in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

Abbott said he expects the trip will lead to additional trade opportunities in many business sectors.

“There is an important relationship between Texas and India,” he said.