Former Barvista Factory Reopens to Build Oil Field Housing

PTI Group,, a company that provides housing for thousands of workers in oil fields and other remote locations built its first modular unit this week at the former 103,000 sq ft Barvista Modular Home factory southeast of Loveland, CO.

PTI Group, based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is a subsidiary of Houston-based Oil States International. Oil States CEO and president Cindy Taylor said business is booming, with its market capitalization growing from $450 million when the company went public in 2001 to $4 billion today.

Kelly Hart, Operations Manager for PTI's new Colorado factory

Ron Green, CEO and president of PTI Group, said his company owns and operates 22,000 rooms in North America, making it one of the largest hoteliers on the continent.

That number of rooms will increase immediately as the Johnstown factory gears up its production.

PTI Group makes and delivers residential units to remote sites. It can quickly set up multistory modular buildings at self-contained camps housing as many as 5,000 people, providing the workers with hot meals and facility management services.

It also supplies smaller units, which the Johnstown plant will build. Operations manager Kelly Hart said his facility will build three types of structure - a two-bedroom, two-bath unit; a duplex with two attached one-bedroom units; and a smaller command center.

The Johnstown facility's first completed unit was a two-bedroom structure, which visitors at Thursday's event toured. The structure, which resembles a sturdy mobile home with wood framing and siding, is built with high snow load and wind tolerances. It has a flat-screen television in each wood-paneled bedroom and a larger TV in the living room, a jetted tub in one of the bathrooms and a washer and dryer.

Hart said PTI Group's Johnstown location has 50 employees so far - most of them hired locally - and will be adding about 10 a week as production increases.

The company expects to have about 250 workers within five years and twice that many if it adds a second shift, he said. Units built here will go to sites in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Texas and Montana, Hart said.