Myers Container Corp. announced Friday that it has begun building a 100,000-square-foot steel drum factory in City of Industry, Calif. The facility, which will replace an existing plant in nearby Los Angeles, is scheduled to open by the end of the year.
The company did not disclose the price of the project except to describe it as a multi-million dollar investment. Officials said Myers is building the new plant to avoid problems that the existing factory would have encountered over state and federal environmental regulations.
Going forward, we would have been significantly curtailed by California and federal emissions rules, Vice President of Sales and Marketing Kyle R. Stavig said. The new plant will have best available control technology for emissions and water treatment. It will also reduce our energy costs and put us in a better position to serve our customers.
Myers, which is based in Emeryville, Calif., operates another drum manufacturing plant in Portland, Ore., and five drum reconditioning plants in Oregon, California and Georgia. The lubricant industry accounts for 20 percent to 30 percent of its sales of new drums, Stavig said.
Last month Myers announced a 9.5 percent hike in prices for new drums, due to rising steel costs. Stavig acknowledged that such an environment makes the decision to build a new factory more weighty.
Of course we had qualms about it, Stavig said. The bigger question was whether we should build in California because the regulatory climate is so difficult and manufacturing jobs are quickly fleeing. It was a gut check for us. But this is what do, and we felt it was important to remain centrally located to our customers.