Working Waterfront

Cianbro’s Eastern Manufacturing Facility is a larger-than-life erector set situated on the waterfront in Brewer. From the Penobscot River you can see steel structures in various stages of completion, but from the road you’d never know anyone was back there. “Some have said, What goes on inside of there? What are you building? All they know is we’re doing great stuff,” says Joseph Cote, general manager for Cianbro.

Unlike erector set toys, which included all the nuts, bolts, and metal beams necessary to make a skyscraper, bridge, or railroad, this 39-acre module facility on South Main Street only has the materials to make modules. Modules are huge squares of heavy-duty steel frames, pipes, and pumps that are the basics needed for expansion projects. Cianbro has been hired by Motiva, the owners of nearly 7,700 Shell gas stations and three refineries, to make 53 modules to expand Shell Oil’s refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.

“There are other module yards out there that do what we do,” Cote says. “I don’t know how many, but we are one of four yards doing this job here for Motiva. Three of the yards are in the U.S. and one is in Mexico.”

Motiva spokesman Stan Mays says Cianbro was hired to produce the modules because, “It came down to having the right people with the right skills and ability to do the work in a timely manner. Building modules away from the actual refinery site takes a lot of coordination, so we needed confidence in the people who could deliver the product on time.”

It takes an army of nearly 500 Cianbro employees to construct the 120-foot-long, 40-foot-wide, and 65-foot-tall modules. “We’ve got 19 of them under construction right now,” Cote says. “These modules aren’t self-functioning—they connect to others. They can have 30, 40, or 50 pipes sticking out of the ends. What’s important is when they leave here there is no trim allowance.” That means each of the pipes has to be within 1/8th of an inch plus or minus so that when they get to Texas they all line up, one behind the other. Cote says this is going to double Shell’s refining capacity, allowing it to increase oil production by about 265,000 barrels a day. The $7 billion expansion will make the Motiva Port Arthur Refinery the largest petroleum producer in the country.

Why double oil capacity in this day and age when the country is striving for energy independence? “The energy mix will change over time,” Mays says. “We will see alternatives and renewable fuels playing a larger part, but gasoline, diesel, traditional petroleum fuels will continue to rise over the coming decades. And we see this [the expansion] as part of long- term energy security for America.”

In order to win the contract from Motiva, Cianbro first had to find a location where the modules could be built. The old Eastern Fine Paper mill in Brewer, located at the tidal head of the Penobscot River, was a natural fit. The defunct mill hadn’t seen steel-toed boots shuffling around the property since it closed in January 2004. During cleanup of the site, Cianbro made sure to preserve some of the mill’s history. “The administrative building and the warehouse are still here,” says Cote.

Cianbro employees who walk the hallways of the administrative building will see newly framed historical photos of loggers and other mill workers who spent their lives earning a living making paper here. Steve Foster, Cianbro employee and former Old Town mill worker, appreciates the effort. “I think the work put in here to retain that heritage. has been worth it.”

The workers on-site today range from 18-year-old welders to senior citizens. “We have some gentlemen close to 70 years old who work here. These people have lots of welding experience and knowledge they can impart, and they can mentor our younger employees,” Cote says.

Cianbro invested $18 million in the Eastern Manufacturing Facility and spent another $6 million training employees. “While most people have to pay to learn a trade, more than 250 Mainers took us up on our offer for paid training and a good job once they learned the skills,” says Cianbro CEO Peter Vigue.

But you won’t find all of those workers on-site. Cianbro has several welders who work across the river in Bangor at the company’s fabrication and coating facility. Cote describes that part of the operation as “like playing a computer game. The pipe physically sits in the equipment and rolls, and the welder controls the speed at which the pipe rolls by using a foot pedal.” It’s a job that takes precision, concentration, and coordination, and it’s a task that the Brewer site depends on. “The Bangor facility supports the Eastern Manufacturing Facility and vice versa,” Vigue says.

Bangor mayor Gerry Palmer has been watching the activity going on at Cianbro in Brewer and enjoys seeing people back to work along the waterfront. “We are certainly seeing a rebirth here,” he says. “I’m very proud of what is happening. This is just the beginning of what we’re going to see in the future.”

These workers shipped out their first four completed modules by barge in March. It was no small feat to move these 700-ton blocks. It took two weeks for the crew to maneuver the structures to the waterfront where their water taxi was waiting. Once they were loaded and ready to cast off, Cianbro marked the occasion by having a bon voyage celebration. The governor, Motiva representatives, and city officials from both Bangor and Brewer were there, along with all of Cianbro’s workers. The modules made a 2,300-mile trip that took another two weeks to complete.

When the company finishes the remaining 49 modules, Cianbro will be paid between $120 million and $140 million for the job. That doesn’t take into account all the thousands of dollars the company has brought into the city since opening its module facility. “I know it has affected a lot of businesses,” says D’arcy Main-Boyington, Brewer’s economic development director. “A lot of the businesses we’ve talked to have said this is fantastic. There’s been increased traffic because of the workers here each day. Most of the workers who work here don’t live in Brewer; they have to travel to Brewer. We’re the ones seeing the tax benefits from this, but the benefits to the region are even greater.”

Economic development specialist, and Main-Boyington’s coworker, Tanya Pereira agrees. “Having those people head to South Brewer as their destination has changed many of their patterns,” Pereira says, “such which Hannaford they’ll shop at, or where they are going to go when they have to go to the bank.”

Brewer’s economic team says Cianbro is attracting other companies to the city, too. “There is just so much activity going on here. That’s important because a business deciding where to locate will want to go to someplace that has a certain type of momentum, has a lot of good things going on. You don’t want a place that’s sort of sleepy and tired. You want to go where there’s a lot of activity,” says Main-Boyington. And from the moment the workers clock in they are moving. According to Cote, that includes everyone from himself to the secretaries, the foremen, engineers, welders, and pipe fitters.

Motiva is Cianbro’s only client for now, but Cote is confident about the future, since the company can do work for more than one client at a time depending on the schedule. He believes the modules produced in Brewer will catch the attention of potential clients.

“We’re in the large-module business, and there are lots of projects globally,” Cote says. “We have a very good labor source, we are competitive, and have people with Yankee ingenuity who want to get the job done. It’s a big pond across the Atlantic but, frankly, a small world when you get into modules and we’re looking to get a good name for what we put out here.”