GE Oil & Gas to build manufacturing facility in Florida

GE Oil & Gas plans to build a $50 million advanced manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Fla. The new facility will house manufacturing operations for oil and natural gas industry equipment, including regulators and control valves, GE said recently. The facility is expected to open in November.

GE said it chose to open a facility in Florida to help meet the growing demand of its industrial technology solutions worldwide. The new facility will include advanced manufacturing processing technologies to encourage innovation of oil and gas products.

Advanced manufacturing could be the next chapter in the Industrial Revolution, said Chuck Nugent, vice president of manufacturing at GE Oil & Gas. “The new Jacksonville facility will use advanced manufacturing practices to fuel the future with new technologies that meet our customers’ needs faster, while bringing new job opportunities to Jacksonville.” The new facility is expected to create at least 500 jobs over the next three years.

The manufacturing facility likely will work closely with GE’s planned Oklahoma City Global Research Center, which is scheduled to open next year. The $110 million Oklahoma City facility will be the company’s ninth global research center and the first dedicated to one industry.

GE has announced collaborative agreements with Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., California-based Chevron and Mexico’s Pemex.