HELENA – An official for a Texas-based company says it is close to finalizing a deal to buy 160 acres near the tiny town of Bynum in northwestern Montana where it would build processing modules destined for tar sands in Canada.
Charlie Hay, senior site manager for Lauren Engineers & Constructors, said the Abilene-based company will move quickly once the sale is complete to get production started by spring.
“We’re looking to be ready to go to work by April of next year,” Hay told the Great Falls Tribune. “We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then.”
He said parts produced elsewhere would be brought to the plant to be assembled into larger components that would be trucked to oilfields in Canada to be combined into crude oil processing facilities. Up to 100 people would initially be hired, he said, with about half of them coming from the area.
He said assembling and welding would be the main work at the plant.
“We’re going to be looking for employees who have experience in what we need to do and meet the criteria,” Hay said. “Let us get through the land deal here, and let us get sure we’re settled on that land with a clear title. Once that’s done, then things become very real.”
Residents are excited but cautious about the possible assembly plant, said Jerry Jones, owner of Bynum’s landmark tavern J.D.’s Wildlife Sanctuary.
“People are talking about it all the time, but right now it’s all just rumors as far as I’m concerned,” Jones said.
Hay said the company chose Bynum because it’s located along the proposed route for shipping over-sized loads of oil refinery equipment from Lewiston, Idaho, to the Kearl Lake area near Fort McMurray, Alberta.
“We’re interested in a high-and-wide corridor because in Canada, they asked for mega modules,” Hay said.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer backs the proposed plant, said Evan Barrett, the governor’s chief business development officer.
“This is, in essence, just one part of the fulfillment of what the governor has called for: to do some manufacturing and assembling related to (the tar sands) here in Montana, not just being a bridge for people to pass through,” Barrett said. “If we can have jobs in Montana, that’s what we strive for.”