March 13, 2008
Bredero-Shaw Asks for Extension

Photo by Dave Maxwell Bredero-Shaw Representative Mark Soloninka talking to Caliente City Council.

By Dave Maxwell, Staff Writer

Caliente City Council tabled a motion to issue a one-year extension to Bredero-Shaw Corporation (the world leader in pipe coating solutions) for first right-of-refusal on their lease agreement with the City for 62-acres at the Meadow Valley Industrial Park.

Mark Soloninka, representative of Bredero-Shaw in Houston, Texas, was on hand to personally ask for the extension beyond the March 31, 2008 expiration.

He said that when the lease agreement was made, the company thought the bid would have already gone out to build a 27,000 square-foot pipe coating plant and a 6,000 square foot second building at the industrial park. He said the bid for the project will probably not go out until sometime this summer.

In February 2008, Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) said they are desirous of building their own pipe mill and coating facility at the same location. SNWA has not yet made an official offer for a lease on the property. Soloninka said if SNWA did make an official offer, Bredero-Shaw might back away from their lease, but would like to have the first right-of-refusal for any other potential participants.

SNWA has indicated that Bredero-Shaw, at present, does not figure into the plans for the type of pipe coating they would need for the proposed water pipeline extending from White Pine County to Las Vegas. Marc Jensen, Director of Engineering for SNWA, told The RECORD that they are considering bidding out a pipe mill fabricator and then allowing the pipe mill to subcontract the coating operation to a company of their choice that meets the specifications, if the fabricator did not want to do the coating process themselves. “Bredero-Shaw has a very specialized coating process,” Jensen reported, “and currently we are not anticipating that process to be part of our pipe requirements.”

But Mr. Soloninka said he talked with SNWA in January and was told that because Bredero-Shaw has experience in “putting on all types of coating around the world,” SNWA might still select them.

City Attorney John Brown said he would like to take a couple of weeks to study the agreement extension idea because some new language, allowing an offer by SNWA to override Bredero-Shaw’s first right-of-refusal, but only SNWA, needs to be included and he would bring it back for the Council’s review at the March 20 meeting.

In other action, the Council approved an ordinance to annex Tuffy Properties within the Caliente city limits and approved the final draft of the Lincoln County Habitat Conservation Plan.