AUSTIN (February 15, 2013)--Argentine energy pipeline giant Tenaris SA plans to build a $1.3 billion Gulf Coast manufacturing facility, creating 600 jobs.

Gov. Rick Perry said Friday that Tenaris, the world's top producer of steel tubing for the oil industry, is receiving $6 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund to close the deal.

Perry said he convinced the company to choose Texas while expanding its existing U.S. workforce during his economic development trip to Italy last year, as well as during a recent Formula 1 race in Austin.

The 1 million-square-foot plant, which is set to open in 2016 in Matagorda County south of Houston, will have a seamless pipe mill, heat treatment and premium threading facilities and is expected to eventually produce 600,000 tons of pipe annually.