On the heels of the company's successful IPO comes a $24 million operations facility in Lafayette.
Less than two months after raising $712 million in its initial public offering of stock, Frank's International is making good on its promise to invest some of those proceeds in Lafayette.
Frank's International is adding a 175,000-square-foot operations
center on Beau Pre Road.
ABiz first reported the oilfield services company's local expansion plans in June when it broke the story on Frank's planned IPO; on Wednesday, Frank's began turning dirt on its 175,000-square-foot operations facility at 708 Beau Pre Road. The project consists of a combination of shop, warehouse and office space for the company's operational departments and approximately 200 employees.
"What we're doing is we're trying to get off Verot School Road," Frank's International President and CEO Keith Mosing told ABiz for the June story. "So the operations building is going to be on Beau Pre. This is raw land on Beau Pre that we've owned for a couple of years."
Lafayette-based Core Construction Group was awarded the operations facility project, estimated to cost approximately $24 million and be completed by October 2014.
"Everything in Lafayette is going to be expanded," Mosing said in June. "We're going to be bigger, better, stronger and able to serve our customers better."
In addition to its tubular handling equipment, Frank's designs and manufactures products its sells or rents directly to external customers, like casing centralizers and large outside diameter pipe connectors. It also provides specialized fabrication and welding services in support of deep water projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, including drilling and production risers, flowlines and pipeline end terminations and long length tubulars (up to 300 feet) for use as caissons or pilings.
Frank's stock debuted Aug. 9 on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "FI" at $22 a share; it was up to $30 a share in mid-day trading Thursday.