Central PA industrial park continues to invest through slowdown





The Marcellus Energy Park’s first tenant, Weatherford International, helped define the business park as an asset to the natural gas industry early on.

The Marcellus Energy Park’s first tenant, Weatherford International, helped define the business park as an asset to the natural gas industry early on.

In 2011, with the Marcellus shale boom in full swing, two Lycoming County-based real estate developers, Brent M. Fish and Dan Klingerman, formed a partnership, Fishlips LLC, to develop the region’s first industrial park made for shale gas-related companies. The 200-acre Marcellus Energy Park located along Industrial Park Road in Muncy, Pa. was developed in collaboration with the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce.

The ability to market the park as a tax-free Keystone Opportunity Zone was a key factor in bringing four major oilfield services businesses into the area and creating over 400 new jobs. Fish and Klingerman’s first task in developing the park was to find a big name anchor tenant, which they found in Weatherford International, the world’s seventh largest oilfield services company, with annual revenues of $7.8 billion.

“We started looking at doing a smaller building for Weatherford on a different site, but when the scope of their operations expanded, we needed a larger site, and this was the impetus for the entire park,” said Fish.

Weatherford originally occupied 22.7 acres, and then built three more facilities on an additional 17.5 acres in the park. Soon after, three other oilfield service companies — FMC Technologies Inc’s surface and fluid divisions, GE Oil & Gas Pressure Control LP, and Blackhawk Specialty Tool LLC — signed agreements to construct build-to-suit facilities for their operations at Marcellus Energy Park.

“Like any development, whether it’s an industrial park, retail center or an office building, an ‘anchor’ is what kicks off your project and legitimizes your ability to complete future projects for other prospects in the market,” said Fish.

“Once you have a couple projects under way or completed in your park, it proves you have the financial and logistical ability to get things done.

“There were many other developers in the region and around the state that attempted to do the kind of quality build- to-suit projects we did successfully at the park.”

Glenn O. Hawbaker of State College engineered the plans for the park and was also the site contractor. JB Gibbons Construction, Lundy Construction, and Allison Crane and Rigging, all based in Williamsport, were the main general contractors for the buildings.

“These are some of the most experienced people in the region, and we were comfortable that our facilities, infrastructure and yards would be of the highest quality,” said Fish.

Behind Weatherford’s two sites is the facility of FMC Technologies Inc., which is located on 6.4 acres. FMC Technologies is headquartered in Houston, TX and has approximately 19,700 employees at 30 production facilities in 16 countries. The company designs, manufactures and services systems and products such as subsea production and processing systems, surface wellhead systems, high pressure pumps and fluid control equipment, measurement solutions and marine loading systems for the oil and gas industry.

GE Oil & Gas Pressure Control LP, which manufactures industrial valves, was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Houston. GE’s division has annual revenues of $123.4 million and employs a staff of 1,500.

Blackhawk Specialty Tools, LLC, also headquartered in Houston, was founded in 2008. The company, which was recently sold to Bain Capital, LLC and Blackhawk management, designs, assembles, rents and sells offshore and onshore cementing equipment and products to oil and gas companies both domestically and abroad. The company had annual revenues of $68.3 million in 2013.

In addition to the park tenants, three other sites in close proximity were leased to oil & gas-related tenants – Casedhole Solutions, Allied Cementing and Bass Fishing & Rentals.

More recently, Fishlips sold approximately 40 acres on the northwest side of the park to Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

What’s the advantage of having so many oil & gas-related companies located within a short distance from each other?

“I’m not sure it’s always an advantage to have tenants from the same industry in an industrial park,” said Fish.

“But the main advantage of having them clustered together here is that once one or two moved in, it proved that the location, zoning and overall atmosphere at Marcellus Energy Park was welcoming to them.

“This was really important to our tenants early on, there were a lot of other landowners that had available property – but not all of it could be utilized by natural gas companies, and that set us apart.”

With the largest number of “dry gas” wells in the Northern Tier and the highest concentration of “wet gas” in the southwestern corner of the state, Lycoming County and Williamsport in the northcentral Pennsylvania appeal to oilfield service companies for locating gas-related company regional headquarters.

“Lycoming County is fortunate to have a good diversity in its economic base, but in 2011 the main industry looking to move into our area was the natural gas industry because of the existing infrastructure, housing, amenities and availability of a diverse and well-trained workforce,” said Fish.

“As demand grew we were fortunate to establish a partnership with the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce, which owned a large tract of industrial land.

“We called it the Marcellus Energy Park for obvious reasons but we have entertained non-gas related prospects at the park.”

While the Marcellus industry was booming when the park was built, the oil bust of 2014, which created steep drops in the prices of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids caused many oil and gas industry companies to lower their operating budgets and lay off employees. The oilfield services segment, which is highly dependent on gas operators, was particularly hard hit. What has been the impact of this slowdown on Fishlip’s gas industry tenants?

“While fortunate to have had the gas industry be such a vital part of our region, we believe that this ‘slowdown’ is just that, and the industry will strengthen again once demand and pricing has increased,” said Klingerman.

“The energy space created many great opportunities for our organization, and while we anxiously await ‘its’ return, we will continue to invest in our community in order to build and grow our infrastructure.” .


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