V&M Star Steel Plant, Ohio

The largest active steel business along the Mahoning River is the V&M Star Steel Company, otherwise known as Vallourec & Mannesman, which is based in Houston, and supplies pipe for the oil and gas industry. The recently expanded plant, north of Youngstown, occupies parts of the old U.S. Steel Ohio Works site, and the former Briar Hill Works of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. The Mahoning Valley around Youngstown was once one of the major steel-producing regions of the World. Eventually the Valley lost out to nearby Pittsburgh, with rail and river access, and the plants along the Great Lakes, with iron and limestone ports. A proposed canal leading to Youngstown was never built, and it was among the first of the old steel regions to fall.Historically, Ohio is the second most productive steel state, after Pennsylvania. Today, it is still the second most productive steel state, after Indiana.