Lakeside Steel Inc. is adding additional thermal-processing capabilities, including normalizing, to the Welland, Ontario, facility of its wholly owned subsidiary, Lakeside Steel Corporation. This refurbishment will create 12 new jobs and will enable the modernized operation to ship fully end-finished and normalized tubing products to oil-country customers in the U.S. and Canada. Normalization processing involves the application of heat treatment to products in order to realign grain structure, enhance properties and strengthen the product. Lakeside has already begun refurbishing equipment to enable this value-added processing for its tubular products.

Lakeside currently ships its tubing products to an outside processor for upsetting and normalizing before those products can be threaded, coupled and shipped to customers. The addition of the new processing capability, in conjunction with Lakeside's recently added upsetting and threading equipment, allow it to keep the entire operation in-house. Lakeside will test production to ensure it meets the American Petroleum Institute's (API) strict specifications. Initially, the Welland operation will process 2.375-inch and 2.875-inch tubing.