Marietta Industrial Enterprises workers load pipes from a barge onto a truck Monday so they can be stockpiled at a different part of its Ohio terminal. The company received 1,500 tons of six-inch pipe that will go to oil and gas drillers across West Virginia and Ohio. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

MARIETTA — A Marietta company received a large shipment of pipe used for oil and gas transmission this week.

On Monday Marietta Industrial Enterprises (MIE) Corp. started unloading a shipment of pipe from a barge that totals 1,500 tons, or 3 million pounds, according to the company’s Chief Executive Officer Scott Elliott.

He said the barge brought 70-75 truckloads of pipe from Korea.

“People don’t realize how much barges hold,” Elliott said.

The pipes were loaded onto a large ship in Korea that then traveled across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Panama Canal and finished its journey in New Orleans, according to Elliott.

A truck hauls pipes to be stockpiled at Marietta Industrial Enterprises Ohio River terminal. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

The pipes were then loaded on a barge that traveled up the Mississippi River and then they were put on a smaller push boat where they traveled up the Ohio River to MIE’s Ohio River terminal, he said.

Unloading the pipe will be finished today, according to Elliott, and the six-inch pipes that weigh around 1 ton each will be stockpiled at a different part of the terminal.

The pipes are used in natural gas as distribution lines and will be sent “all over the state of West Virginia and Ohio,” Elliott said.

Oil and gas drilling is down, including in West Virginia and “one of the reasons … is the transmission lines aren’t finished,” he said.

The pipes are an “integral part of oil and gas” and they keep people who work in oil and gas drilling paid, Marietta Industrial Enterprises President Trent Elliott said.

The pipes that make up the transmission lines “provide the gas needed for other industries to develop,” Trent Elliott said, adding the presence of oil and gas drilling and distribution attracts companies to locate to an area.

There are different ways to move pipes from one place to another, including barge, rail and truck, according to Trent Elliott. He said shipping them by barge is the cheapest way, but it is also slow.

MIE receives shipments of pipe like the one it received this week about once a year, Sott Elliott said.

The company receives one million tons of freight every year, including grain, steel coils, coal, lime, rubber, fertilizer, furnace ore, frac sand and more, he said.

“We’re proud to be a third-generation stevedore and employer in Washington County,” Trent Elliott said. “River commerce is the quiet giant of the transportation industry. Millions and millions of tons of raw materials and finished goods are shipped on the Ohio and Mississippi (rivers) every year.”

Shipments like the one that MIE received this week is not something that happens very often, according to Southeastern Ohio Port Authority Director Jesse Roush.

He said shipments of pipe like this have happened less frequently since the high of the oil and gas boom.

“I think any chance that we can (do something with) the Ohio River is important,” he said.

The Ohio River allows the transfer of goods that would otherwise be cost prohibitive, Roush said, and “that’s beneficial to everyone.”

More information about MIE can be found at https://www.miecorp.com/index.html.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com