Our first factory was established in 1998 in the city of Zhangjiakou, three hours north of Beijing. Among our earliest partners was Ingersoll Rand, also based in Zhangjiakou at the time.
The manufacturing base developed rapidly to cover a wide range of drilling equipment including DTH pipes for mining, water well and exploration drilling, plus HDD pipes and tools such as reamers and swivels. In 2012 HDD drill pipe production expanded to a new facility south of Beijing, which was co-invested by Petromaterials China, an API-certified manufacturer of drill pipe and drill collars for the oil and gas industry.
Today more than 300 people work in our two facilities, whose annual production capacity has grown to exceed 300,000 drill pipes.
The North Star company and brand were established in 2012 to unify sales and marketing of our factories’ products, and to strengthen standardization and internationalization across all our product lines. A North American affiliate company, North Star International, was established in Fort Myers, Florida in 2018.
North Star’s head office remains in Beijing. President and General Manager Michael Lyu is concurrently head of both our manufacturing facilities.