An international company that caters to the mining and tunneling industry has received a conditional use permit from Tooele City for the construction of a new plant in the Ninigret Industrial Depot.
The Pennsylvania-based company, JENNMAR, plans to build a manufacturing complex with two buildings — one measuring 55,000 sq. feet and the other 28,000 sq. feet — on a 16-acre property on the east side of the industrial depot.
The plant will produce three separate products and at least initially will require 40-45 new employees, said Charlie Vogus, vice president of operations for JENNMAR.
Products made at the plant will include resin cartridges, a tube-like device filled with a two-part epoxy that is used to seal bolts in mines and tunnels; a specialized cement blended specifically for use in coal mines; and type of foam-filled steel support, also for use in coal mines.
Vogus said he was unable to release any financial details on the project just yet.
The Tooele plant will join a bolt factory JENNMAR operates in Clearfield and eight other U.S.-based plants, in addition to manufacturing operations in China, Australia, Poland and Chile, Vogus said. The new plant will be smaller than the company’s existing operations, but JENNMAR hopes for opportunities to expand at the Tooele site in the future.
“It will be a little bit smaller initially,” he said, “but it’s one of those things that we’ll see how it goes and what kind of market share we can get there.”
Vogus said that JENNMAR’s clientele is currently centered in the eastern U.S., but that the company also hopes to expand into the west. Additionally, he said, the cement mixing operation planned for the Tooele site will be a first for the company, which to date has focused on manufacturing bolts, specialty steel, cable and other such products for the mining and tunneling industries.
JENNMAR selected the Ninigret site for the expansion because the company needed ready rail access, Vogus said.
“It was a good location for us and it seemed to be a good site, a good fit,” he said.
With a conditional use permit now in hand, Vogus said JENNMAR needed to close on the 16.5-acre Ninigret site before it could move forward with construction.