US Steel will begin idling 55 employees indefinitely Sunday at its Wheeling Machine Products plant in Hughes Springs as it continues to adjust to the global COVID-19 pandemic. US Steel has notified the Texas Workforce Commission via email May 1 of the pending job losses that are part of the US Steel Oilwell Services LLC. The layoffs will continue through July as the operations are safely idled.

US Steel in a notice to the TWC to comply with the US Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act said “This action is the result of the sudden, dramatic and unexpected decline in business conditions resulting from the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, which has contributed to and accelerated continued weakening of tubular market conditions, including reduced demand for the company’s products.”

The job losses at Wheeling Machine came two weeks after fracking service provider FTS International Services notified the TWC that it was furloughing 59 employees at its facility at 1704 E Whaley St in Longview and a week after Halliburton laid off 233 employees at its facility at 2906 FM 349 in Kilgore.

The Wheeling Machine Products facility was originally founded by a woodworker-turned-machinist named Ernie Kraus in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1918.

Kraus began as a threaded coupling manufacturer shortly after the end of World War I and quickly elevated his company to the status of a worldwide leader in coupling technology for the petroleum, water well, heating, plumbing and air conditioning markets. Acquired in 2007, US Steel’s Wheeling Machine Products now operates in two locations: Hughes Springs, Texas and Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Wheeling Machine Products now supplies couplings and specialized couplings, ranging in size between 2.375” to 20”, used to connect individual sections of oilfield casing and tubing. These couplings are manufactured at two different locations: Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Hughes Springs, Texas.