WEST POINT — A company that once was one of the largest employers in a north Mississippi city has ended production at a manufacturing plant.
The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports approximately 165 workers were affected by production ending Wednesday at the West Point plant owned by North Carolina-based Babcock & Wilcox.
An additional 50 workers are still helping with the “wind down” of operations at the plant, which made industrial boilers and related equipment.
Babcock & Wilcox had been operating in West Point since 1952. Its plant had around 700 employees in 1998, when it was the company’s only boiler manufacturing plant in the U.S.
Company spokesman Ryan Cornell said it hasn’t decided what it will do with the 250,000-square-foot property.
The company cited increased global competition and energy regulation as factors in the decision to end production at the plant. Cornell said business was affected by increased federal regulations on coal and fossil fuels, which are used in much of the equipment that was made in West Point.
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