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Houston-based National OilWell Varco hopes interest in the Marcellus Shale will translate into business for its gas drilling supply division.

The company recently opened a distribution services center at 836 Fairfield Road in Montoursville, from where it can supply just about anything a gas exploration operation needs.

"We have a manufacturing group and we have the supply side of this," Marty Whiteley, northeast area manager for the company, said Thursday during an open house at the center. "We supply everything from WD-40 to the fittings used in gas exploration.

"When you have an on-site drilling operation, you use just about anything you use in a household, plus fittings and equipment unique to the industry," Whiteley said.

According to center manager David Bowlan, the company is full service, providing on-site deliveries of everything from food and beverages to tools, rope, hard hats, hand soap, paper towels, pipes, valves, meters, chain, industrial light bulbs and stainless steel tubing.

"They won't have to leave the rig," Bowlan said. "We bring everything to them - water, soda, juice - if we don't have it, we'll get it.

"We do whatever they want, whenever they want," he said. "That's our business."

Deliveries can be made 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Bowlan said.

"When my phone rings at 2 in the morning, somebody is going out to the rig," he said.

The Montoursville center, which employs six people, four of whom were hired locally, is one of three opened by the company in Pennsylvania, Whiteley said.

The other two sites are Punxsutawney and Carmichaels, Bowlan said.

The Williamsport area was chosen as a site because of its proximity to drilling activity, Whiteley said.

"We see this as an area to be in," he said. "It's hard to predict, but we think it's going to be an active area for some time."

Bowlan said the fact that gas exploration companies, such as Chief Oil and Gas LLC, have offices in the area "doesn't hurt.

"We knew there were other businesses here that could support us as vendors and customers," he said.

According to Whiteley, National OilWell Varco is a global company that has been in business for 140 years.