Tenaris has officially inaugurated a new service center in Fort St. John, British Columbia, marking a significant expansion of the company’s operational footprint in Western Canada and reinforcing its long-term commitment to supporting oil and gas development across the Montney Formation. The facility, whose investment was first announced in June 2025, has now been completed on schedule and within its allocated budget, positioning Tenaris to deliver enhanced Rig Direct® services to customers operating in one of North America’s most resource-rich and strategically important natural gas regions.
Located in northeastern British Columbia, Fort St. John sits at the heart of the Montney Formation—an expansive geological formation widely recognized for containing some of the continent’s largest natural gas reserves. The region has become a cornerstone of Canada’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) ambitions, attracting sustained drilling activity, infrastructure development, and long-term energy investment. By establishing a dedicated service center directly within this high-activity zone, Tenaris aims to improve responsiveness, reduce logistical complexity, and strengthen day-to-day operational support for drilling companies working across both British Columbia and neighboring Alberta.
Company leadership emphasized that proximity to customers is a defining element of Tenaris’s Rig Direct® service philosophy. Martín Castro, President of Tenaris in Canada, noted that service centers function as critical operational hubs within the company’s integrated supply and support network. Positioning a facility in the Montney region allows Tenaris to respond more quickly to evolving field requirements, streamline delivery timelines, and provide more consistent technical assistance to operators managing complex drilling programs in one of the country’s most active energy corridors. The new Fort St. John location therefore represents not only a physical expansion, but also a strategic enhancement of customer engagement and operational efficiency.
At the core of the new facility’s offering is the Rig Direct® service model, Tenaris’s comprehensive approach to supplying Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) pipes and related accessories. Rather than functioning as a traditional distribution system, Rig Direct® integrates digital tools, logistics coordination, and technical services into a unified platform designed to improve drilling performance and reduce total operational costs. Through this model, operators benefit from increased reliability, optimized inventory management, and enhanced well integrity—factors that are particularly important in large-scale shale and gas developments such as those found in the Montney.
From its nine-acre yard in Fort St. John, Tenaris will provide a range of advanced technical and digital solutions tailored to the operational realities of modern drilling environments. Among these is the RunReady™ service, which ensures that pipes arrive at the drilling rig fully prepared for immediate use. By completing inspection processes, accessory assembly, and field tally preparation before delivery, RunReady™ minimizes on-site handling requirements, improves safety conditions for rig crews, and contributes to more efficient rig utilization. In an industry where downtime carries significant financial implications, such pre-deployment readiness can translate into meaningful productivity gains.
Supporting these services is Tenaris’s proprietary PipeTracer® identification system, which enables pipe-by-pipe traceability from the manufacturing mill to the final well installation. This digital tracking capability enhances transparency across the supply chain, allowing operators to verify product origin, quality data, and deployment history in real time. Traceability has become increasingly important as energy companies prioritize operational integrity, regulatory compliance, and environmental accountability. By embedding digital identification into its OCTG workflow, Tenaris aligns its service model with broader industry expectations for data-driven reliability and lifecycle management.
The development of the Fort St. John Service Center also reflects investment in workforce capability. In the months leading up to the facility’s opening, newly hired employees underwent training at Tenaris’s established yard in Grande Prairie, Alberta. There, they worked alongside experienced personnel to gain practical knowledge of operational procedures, safety standards, and service delivery protocols before transitioning to the new British Columbia location. This structured onboarding approach ensures continuity in service quality while fostering the transfer of institutional expertise across Tenaris’s Canadian network.
Financially, the project represents an investment of approximately $5 million USD. Following completion, the Fort St. John facility received its first shipment of steel pipes from Tenaris’s industrial hub in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. This site serves as the manufacturing center for all Tenaris steel pipe production in Canada, producing both seamless and welded products destined for domestic energy markets. From Sault Ste. Marie, OCTG materials are transported primarily by rail to regional service centers—previously located in Edmonton and Grande Prairie, Alberta, and now expanded to include Fort St. John—before final dispatch to customer drilling locations.
The addition of the Fort St. John center therefore strengthens the logistical chain connecting Canadian manufacturing with Western Canadian energy production. Shorter delivery distances and localized inventory storage can help reduce transportation time, improve scheduling flexibility, and mitigate supply disruptions caused by weather or infrastructure constraints. In regions characterized by remote operations and harsh seasonal conditions, such logistical resilience is essential for maintaining continuous drilling activity.
Beyond the new service center, Tenaris maintains a substantial and diversified presence across Canada. The Sault Ste. Marie Industrial Center has seen more than $180 million USD in investment since 2020, underscoring the company’s long-term confidence in Canadian steel manufacturing and energy demand. In Alberta, Tenaris operates multiple specialized facilities, including an OCTG accessories and pipe-threading plant in Nisku, as well as coating facilities in Edmonton and Camrose that provide protective treatments designed to extend product lifespan in demanding well environments. Complementing these industrial operations are a commercial office in Calgary—situated near the heart of Canada’s energy sector—and a research and development center in Toronto focused on advancing materials science, product performance, and digital innovation.
Across these locations, Tenaris employs more than 1,200 people spanning four Canadian provinces, reflecting a broad national footprint that integrates manufacturing, technology development, logistics, and customer support. The Fort St. John expansion builds upon this foundation, reinforcing Western Canada as a central pillar of the company’s regional strategy.
From an industry perspective, the opening of the new service center arrives at a time when Canada’s natural gas sector is gaining renewed global relevance. LNG export capacity under development along the British Columbia coast is expected to increase demand for upstream production, placing additional importance on efficient drilling operations within formations like the Montney. Infrastructure investments that enhance reliability, reduce operational friction, and support scalable production are therefore closely aligned with the sector’s long-term growth trajectory. Tenaris’s Fort St. John facility can be viewed within this broader context—as both a response to current activity levels and a forward-looking investment in anticipated expansion.
Equally significant is the role of digitalization in shaping the future of oilfield services. Solutions such as PipeTracer® and RunReady™ illustrate how traditional industrial supply chains are evolving toward integrated, data-enabled ecosystems. By combining physical infrastructure with digital traceability and pre-deployment preparation, Tenaris is positioning its service model to meet changing operator expectations around efficiency, transparency, and risk management. These capabilities may become increasingly important as energy producers navigate cost pressures, regulatory scrutiny, and the need for operational optimization.
Safety and environmental stewardship also remain central considerations. Pre-assembled and pre-inspected pipe deliveries can reduce manual handling at drilling sites, lowering exposure to potential hazards for field personnel. Improved logistics planning may also decrease transportation emissions and site congestion. While incremental, such operational improvements contribute to broader industry efforts to enhance sustainability and responsible resource development.
Looking ahead, the Fort St. John Service Center is expected to play a pivotal role in supporting ongoing drilling programs across northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta. Its strategic location, integrated service capabilities, and connection to Tenaris’s national manufacturing and logistics network position it as a key node in the company’s Canadian operations. As LNG projects progress and regional production scales, the importance of responsive, technology-enabled service infrastructure will likely continue to grow.
In opening this new facility, Tenaris not only expands its geographic reach but also reinforces its broader vision for integrated, customer-centric energy services. The Fort St. John investment reflects confidence in Canada’s natural gas future, commitment to operational excellence, and recognition of the evolving technological landscape shaping modern drilling. Through a combination of local presence, digital innovation, and coordinated logistics, the company aims to deliver measurable value to operators while contributing to the continued development of one of North America’s most significant energy regions.
Source Link:https://www.tenaris.com/en/news/
