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NATCHEZ—Workers from three companies undertook the tedious operation Friday morning of moving a 600,000-pound, 275-foot-long steel tower from the Enerfab facility here to the Natchez Port, where it began its journey to Port Arthur, Texas.

Workers at Enerfab’s Gulf Coast Fabrication Shop in Natchez engineered and manufactured the gigantic piece of steel for BASF’s plant in Port Arthur, Texas.

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Enerfab has 11 facilities nationwide and employs more than 4,000 people.

Dan Creech, an executive vice president at Enerfab Process Solutions’ headquarters in Cincinnati, said that because of confidentiality issues, he could not say what the tower will do or how it will be used but can only say it is a process tower the Natchez facility built for BASF’s operations on the Gulf Coast.

“Enerfab performed the mechanical engineering with the customer. We did the entire project from the middle of February to the middle of August. It was really impressive work and was on a fully expedited basis,” Creech said.

Enerfab Process Solutions is owned by HBH Holdings of Cincinnati. EPS owns two pressure vessel manufacturing facilities—one in Cincinnati and the other in Natchez, the company’s Gulf Coast facility.

“The Natchez facility is incredibly important to the company,” Creech said. The Natchez operation employs 50 people who work multiple shifts.

“In Natchez, we manufacture pressure vessels through cutting form, welding, and testing steel,” he said.

Creech said Duncan Guedon, who was born and raised in Natchez, is the Natchez shop operations manager.

On Friday, Creech said Enerfab and BASF workers worked together to engineer support structures and lifting cranes to move the huge piece of steel onto special transport vehicles called self-propelled modular transporters, also known as SPMTs.

“Another company, Deep South, which is a heavy haul specialist, transported the tower from our property onto the barge at the Port of Natchez,” he said.

Creech said the tower will likely depart on a barge on Saturday and travel down the Mississippi River to the Gulf Coast.

Creech works out of the company’s Cincinnati headquarters and process division of EPS and oversees business development and strategy.

“Enerfab is a special welding manufacturing facility and we are always looking for good help,” he said. “We need people with strong welding backgrounds. We are a company that is all about our culture and our people, and Natchez plays a significant role in our company.”