Major layoff at Tenaris manufacturer

About 100 workers have been told they will be laid off at the Tenaris manufacturing facility in Hickman, on the edge of Mississippi County. A timetable for the layoffs was not released by the company.

Tenaris is a metal tubular manufacturing facility that makes products primarily used in the oil and gas drilling industry.

The company released a statement to S&P Global saying the layoffs were a result of the declines in the drilling industry.

“Drilling activity in the oil and [natural] gas market has been steadily declining. This has had a direct impact on tubulars, which has been further compounded by a significant level of unfairly traded OCTG imports, despite the low demand,” Tenaris spokeswoman Carolina Mendoza said in a statement.

“As a result of the slowdown, we have made the difficult decision to lay off just over 90 employees at our welded pipe facility in Hickman, Arkansas,” she said.

Tenaris has operated its Hickamn facility for 26 years, according to the company. Since 2006 it has invested $260 million in the plant.

This isn’t the first time the company has laid workers off at the plant in recent years. It was reported by Talk Business & Politics that 300 workers lost their jobs in 2016, and there was a layoff two years prior to that one.

How many workers will remain at the plant was not disclosed.