Sep. 17--With oil hovering around $95 a barrel and drilling in the United States for oil and natural gas on the rise, the new Russian-based owner of steel tube plants in Koppel and Ambridge in Beaver County sees a bright future for local operations.

"We see a number of pluses in this acquisition and in this market. The market is so dynamic. Everybody worldwide is drilling more, exploring more," said Piotr Galitzine, chairman of TMK IPSCO, the Lisle, Ill.-based North American subsidiary of OAO TMK, which is Russia's largest tubemaker.

Moscow-based OAO TMK purchased IPSCO and its Koppel Tubulars Corp. plants in Koppel, Ambridge and Baytown, Texas, in March for $1.7 billion.

Galitzine, who oversees 2,074 employees, was in Koppel on Tuesday, where he saw steel made in an electric arc furnace, then poured into a continuous caster, formed into billets and cut by a natural gas torch into varying lengths, before it was trucked to Ambrige to be made into seamless pipe.

Natural gas drillers need the seamless pipe and couplings because its strength is needed when drilling horizontally to reach gas reserves in unconventional locations, such as the Marcellus Shale that is prevalent in western and central Pennsylvania. Seamless is stronger than pipe that is formed from steel sheets and welded with a seam that can fail under pressure underground.

The privately owned company does not release sales or production numbers, but Galitzine said the Koppel plant has the capacity to produce almost 500,000 tons of steel annually. Overall, OAO TMK produces about 3 million tons each year.

"Practically everything produced here is sold domestically," Galitzine said, because the U.S. market has the most wells being drilled annually. But the plants have supplied international accounts and exports remain an "interesting business opportunity," Galitzine said.

Steelworkers at the Koppel and Ambridge plants, where about 710 people are employed, have found themselves to be part of a buying spree by Russian metallurgical companies. Russian-based companies own about 8 percent of U.S. raw steel production capability, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, a Washington-based trade group.

Although Russian companies such as OAO TMK, Severstal, the Evraz Group and Novolipetsk have made news with purchases of U.S. steel assets, Galitzine said of the 115 major acquisitions by Russian metallurgical companies, only 17 have occurred in the United States.

"We're not here to fix something that is not broken. We're here to improve on that which is here," Galitzine said.

The U.S.