Dallas HDPE pipe maker adds S.C. plant

DALLAS (Oct 15, 11:30 p.m. ET) -- High density polyethylene pipe and fittings maker Independent Pipe Products Inc. is moving into a former Performance Pipe facility in Abbeville, S.C.

The Dallas-based company had been seeking an East Coast location since at least April when IPPI bought an American Maplan extrusion line capable of making pipe in diameters up to 65 inches.

The large-diameter unit will be the centerpiece of the new IPPI plant, which will be 48,000 square feet after the company completes a 12,000-square-foot expansion — a project currently underway, Steve Bowles, Abbeville County’s Economic Development Director, said in an Oct. 15 telephone interview.

IPPI is investing a minimum of $7 million on the project, and will start with a minimum of 25 employees.

The operation will run 24 hours a day, seven days per week, Bowles said.

IPPI President Ron Hopton-Jones could not be reached for comment.

“This new facility will move us closer to our growing customer base on the East Coast,” Hopton-Jones said in a news release. “South Carolina offers us an excellent business environment, and Abbeville County had an existing facility in which we could house our operations and grow.”

Hopton-Jones, in an April interview with Plastics News, said the new plant would have six or seven extrusion lines and have about 50 million pounds of throughput capacity.

IPPI has been fabricating HDPE pipe fittings for about 30 years, cutting extrusions and fusion welding them into fittings. Hopton-Jones said previously that it is difficult to injection mold fittings competitively for diameters larger than 10 inches.

The company currently operates out of a 110-employee, 275,000-square-foot plant purchased in 2004, when the long-time fittings maker moved into HDPE pipe extrusion after acquiring the PE pipe division of Houston-based North American Pipe Co.

The North American Pipe PE business was extruding about 24 million pounds of throughput on five lines in 2004. Since the acquisition, IPPI has gown that business to about 40 million pounds annually on nine extrusion lines.

The company makes smooth-wall pressure pipe, which is used to serve various markets including natural gas delivery, mining, sanitary sewer and potable water transfer.

IPPI makes pipe in diameters ranging from 2-36 inches. The new 65-inch line will open up a plethora of new markets.

“It’s not like you’re going to find one on every street corner,” Hopton-Jones said in April, of the new gargantuan Maplan line.

Neither Maplan nor IPPI will confirm, but the 65-inch line is believed to be just the fifth of its kind in the United States. Los Angeles-based JM Eagle owns tow, and Gainesville, Texas-based PolyPipe Inc. owns another.

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