Lone Star Tech completes joint venture with GPC

Lone Star Technologies Inc. has completed a joint venture deal with Grupo Peixoto de Castro (GPC) for shared ownership in an oilfield tubular products facility in Brazil. Lone Star has obtained a 50 percent ownership stake in Apolo Mecanica e Estruturas LTDA, an oilfield tubular products facility in southeastern Brazil, for about $42 million. Lone Star paid $24 million of the $42 upon closure of the deal, with the balance to be paid over the next year and a half. Grupo Peixoto holds the remaining 50 percent ownership stake in the facility. The profits from the joint venture will be shared equally between the two partners. Lone Star Technologies is a Dallas-based holding company. Its subsidiaries make and market oilfield casing, tubing, in addition to line pipe and other tubular products and services. Grupo Peixoto de Castro is a Brazilian holding company that operates subsidiaries that manufacture and distribute refined petroleum-derived products, lubricants, chemicals and petrochemicals, steel tubular products and refractory materials.