Sep. 20--Early in 2008, when Berry Y&V Fabricators moved into Billings hoping to cash in on the oil sands industry in Alberta, things were booming in the Canadian province.

Oil prices were climbing toward $140 a barrel and oil companies were spending billions of dollars to extract dense deposits of oil-soaked sands and process them into petroleum products. Berry Y&V was hoping to build components of processing plants in the region.

Then, last fall, the worldwide recession and plunging oil prices put the brakes on the boom, and virtually every major oil sands project that was supposed to have begun last year was indefinitely postponed.

Berry Y&V Fabricators still isn't hiring any of the hundreds of workers it expected to need, but the company's business manager is keeping a close eye on the rebounding oil sands industry and hopes to begin hiring by next summer.

"I don't have any great news to report, except that we bought this plant for the long haul and we're committed to Billings and Montana," James McCord said recently.

Since buying the old Holland Loader property -- located where South 32nd Street West dead-ends just north of Interstate 90 -Berry Y&V has been working to make the heavy industrial plant "standby ready," meaning that as soon as contracts are signed, all the company will have to do is begin hiring workers.

McCord said Berry Y&V has remodeled office space, built a break room, restrooms and first-aid room, replaced the roof, completely rewired the facility and installed eight new overhead cranes. McCord didn't say how much has been invested in the plant overall, but the cranes alone cost nearly $1 million.

"We've got a huge investment -- let's put it that way," he said.

The company eventually hopes to employ 200 to 300 people, mostly welders and pipefitters. McCord said the company, working through the local Job Service office, has been accepting applications for a year and a half and has amassed "a really good database of resumes from locals and from out of state."

He said he expects to be able to hire a lot of Montanans, including some people who have been working in Gulf Coast states and are eager to return home. Long term, the company expects to do fabrication work for refineries and other industrial plants in Billings and around the state, McCord said, but it didn't want to hire workers for any smaller projects until it reached "critical mass" with the landing of oil sands contracts.

Berry Y&V Fabricators is a Montana corporation formed by two Texas-based companies, Berry Y&V Industrial Contracting and Bay Ltd.