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Italian Tissue Paper Maker Building Plant in Inola

Matt Trotter
/
KWGS

Italian tissue paper manufacturer Sofidel is building a $360 million plant in the Rogers County town of Inola.

Sofidel’s new, nearly 2 million square foot facility should be running by 2020 and will be able to produce 120,000 tons of toilet paper, facial tissues and other products each year. That volume will require 300 workers. Inola Mayor Larry Grigg said that’s nothing to sneeze at.

"The people that work here and are going to buy stuff in our stores, our restaurants, it’s going to bring in new businesses. And as a small community, most of our stuff depends on sales tax," Grigg said.

Sofidel Group CEO Luigi Lazzareschi said the United States is the company’s second-largest market behind Italy.

"By the end of the year, U.S. is going to be bigger," Lazzareschi said. "I mean, it’s going to be the largest country in which we operate, and our intention is still to continue this growth for sure for the next years to come."

A 1,100-acre site owned by Public Service Company of Oklahoma for 40 years and intended for a nuclear power plant is the plant's future home. PSO President and C-E-O Stuart Solomon said when the utility company decided the land should be sold for business use, they decided to make it practically shovel-ready.

"You take that work combined with the assets that were mentioned earlier — close by highway access, we’ve got rail access, we’ve got river access, utility access — it’s a fantastic asset in terms of attracting new business to this part of the state," Solomon said.

The plant will serve the south-central U.S. It will be 40 percent bigger than the Macy’s distribution center in Tulsa County.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.