W. T. Byler Builds Upon Varied Site Prep Services
Houston-based civil sitework and railroad contractor W.T. Byler Co. has laid the groundwork to advance as one of the most formidable enterprises of its kind in Texas and southwestern Louisiana thanks to its diverse clientele, numerous site preparation services and a rigorous safety program. Revenue for the family-owned business, founded in 1974, rose nearly 70% to $420.29 million in the past year alone.
The open-shop firm engages in 60 to 80 projects a year, according to Wendell Rychlik, executive director of business development and marketing for Byler. In to addition to private design-build railroad projects, Byler's direct-hire workforce of up to 1,000 engages in a variety of services across numerous sectors, including clearing and grubbing, ground improvement earth surcharge, mass excavation and embankment, below-grade piping installation, in-situ and pulvimixing soil stabilization. Construction of site structures encompasses building pads, site-work concrete, asphalt paving, heavy haul roads, laydown yards, brine ponds and dredge material placement areas.
The firm has built hundreds of miles of rail work, including turnkey construction of Class 1 main 1 lines, storage-in-transit (SIT) yards, transload sidings, spurs and wye tracks, all executed among a variety of soil and environmental conditions. Byler also performs railroad maintenance-of-way and railroad emergency response.
Keeping Gulf Coast Industry on Track
In order to develop these rail-served industrial parks, including track construction and other infrastructure improvements for all these mega projects, WT Byler Co has been Rail Logix’s go-to delivery for both site and rail construction.
In working with Rail Logix, the schedule is driven by their needs. Concept drawings typically begin with 2D views that are transformed into 3D models with supporting infrastructure and drainage, in weeks not months. This requires working with various consultants, architects, railroads, pipelines and other agencies simultaneously during the initial design process and construction.
Jim Jackson, P.E., project executive with WT Byler Co explains, “We go from simple concept layouts to complete construction drawings at a very fast pace. Most times, construction must start early to maintain scheduled delivery date while we are still solving lagging items. For example, there may be pipelines and utilities crossings to be mitigated, rock within the subgrade to be removed or there are long lead time materials to procure. Additionally, client needs may require dock high capabilities, pit conveyor systems or other types of rail unloading structures.”
Currently, WT Byler Co has excavated more than 3 million cubic yards of earth materials, soil stabilized 50,000 tons of lime/cement and placed 1,000,000 tons of aggregate base materials to build a combination of over 100 miles of track, plus infrastructure, for Rail Logix’s four existing parks.
LyondellBasell PO/TBA: Site Clearing & Grubbing Has Begun!
Contractors have been busy cutting down trees, clearing underbrush, shredding grass, grinding, chipping, and hauling everything away. Other areas are waiting for permit approval from Harris County so they can begin the clearing of 100 acres.
“Progress at BLO is proceeding as per schedule. Clearing and grubbing is nearly finished for Phase I. Great communications between all relevant parties has helped with obtaining permits in a timely manner which in turn, allowed work to start smoothly and on time,” says Mike Crosby, LYB construction manager for the BLO site. “We have commenced with the underground survey scope of work with RadarView They look for obstacles, utilities or anything else underground using GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), which might affect our engineering or design and may require us to make changes."
Robert Manalli is Fluor’s construction manager for the BLO site. “We have a team of contractors and workers that are excited and anxious to get the work moving,” says Robert. “Early in the game, the PO/TBA construction, LYB safety and operations teams met to review the scope of work in detail. We discussed safety plans and permits and everything else we could think of. We wanted to be sure all parties clearly understood their roles and responsibilities in these early stages.” Mike added, “We have crews for 3 sub-contractors, WT Byler, RadarView, and Tulunay-Wong Engineers on...
Build Houston Cover Story: Setting the Standard
The phrase “practice makes perfect” has never been truer than when used to describe industry leader, W.T. Byler Co. as they celebrate the completion of one of their most recent projects – LACC Ethane Cracker Project in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
As announced in December of 2015, Axiall, a Westlake Company and Lotte Chemical Corp. is making a combined $3 billion capital investment with $1.9 billion invested in a new ethane cracker facility beside Axiall’s current Lake Charles manufacturing plants in Calcasieu Parish. Combined, the developments are expected to create 250 new direct jobs.
The project originally required a large quantity of select soil to be brought in from offsite. During the interview process, W.T. Byler Co. offered a value engineering alternative by making the select fill onsite. This not only saved the owner money, but also precious time. After the interviews, W. T. Byler Co. was award the project.
W.T. Byler Co.’s team of 135 personnel and 90 machines got to work to complete the 220-acre project in nine months. By project’s end, W.T. Byler Co. had manipulated over 35,000 tons of lime for soil stabilization, 22,000 tons of fly-ash used as a drying agent, moved 1.35 million cubic yards of earth materials to line and grade, installed turnkey underground piping systems and placed more than 550,000 tons of...
Tenaris Chooses Bay City for New $1B Steel Pipe Mill
Tenaris, a 107 year old global manufacturer of steel pipe prod- ucts used for the energy indus- try, chose Bay City, Texas as the home for its new, $1.5 billion, 1 million square foot, state-of-the-art seamless steel pipe mill because the city offers a combination of favorable geography, op- erational logistics and the availability of a skilled workforce.
Bay City, with a population of 18,667, welcomes the approximately 1,800 jobs its construction will bring. By the time the mill is operational in 2016, it is projected to create 600 direct manufacturing jobs with an average salary of $66,000, an annual projected payroll of about $40 million and significant impact in near- by counties including Brazoria County, where a deep water port is located that will feed steel to the mill.
“This project is the realization of a dream,” said Sergio Tosato, Tenaris’ In- dustrial Expansion Director. “It shows our confidence in the growth of the in- dustrial and energy sectors in North America and our ongoing commitment to strengthening our U.S. operations. This investment will complement our in- tegrated global manufacturing network, as well as our existing North American facilities.”
Tenaris’ annual capacity is 6.5 million tons of steel pipe for sales of $10 billion. The company has almost 4,000 employ- ees and 11 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. TenarisBayCity is the company’s first seamless pipe production plant in the U.S. and its first green field project in over 60 years.
Build Houston Cover Story: Setting the Standard
W.T. Byler Co. established themeselvs as industry pioneers upon the completion of a privately owned 10,000 Railcar yard in Dayton, Texas, which contains 120 miles of track, over 200 switches, and over 1.5 million tons of crushed stone. Twenty years in the making, Sjolander Yard was initially engineered entirely by hand, with no help from computers. “The scope and size of this project was entirely unprecedented – the only people who built rail yards of this magnitude at the time were the railroad companies themselves,” says Bill Byler, CEO.
From humble beginnings, a friendship and shared vision between W. T. “Troy” Byler and Bill Sjolander evolved into the formation of a new concept in private storage for railroad companies, and the largest privately owned facility of its kind in the United States at the time of completion. W.T. Byler did not import or export any soil from the site, and the entire design-build project was based on the natural topography of the land. The massive railcar facility was “green before it’s time,” stated Bobby Posinski, Equipment Manager, who is currently working with low emitting / fuel efficient vehicle programs for W.T. Byler. The yard was designed and built to preserve the quality of earth at and surrounding the site, aligning it to LEED industry standards.
Building Storage-in-Transit (SIT) yards continue to be an integral part of the business, and to date W. T. Byler Co. has constructed over six-hundred miles of welded rail.