NATCHEZ — Great River Industries hasn’t completed the expansion it announced earlier this year, but it has already met the hiring goal set with that announcement.

GRI — formerly Enersteel — announced in July it would expand its floor space by 15 percent, add 25 employees — including white collar workers — and locate its corporate offices from Memphis to the Natchez-Adams County Port area.

The company had 150 employees at the time, and GRI Vice President Aaron Shermer said the company now has 175 employees working during its two 10-hour daily shifts.

“With the white-collar workers, we’re really proud that three of them were displaced Natchezians that we were able to hire and bring back home,” Shermer said.

“We’ve remodeled our offices, and as we grow we are going to look at our office needs and let that decide on when we need to move on (building) a new headquarters building.”

Construction crews with R.L. Blanton have laid the foundation for a 15,000 square-foot expansion to the 100,000 square-foot facility. The expansion will house a pipe-manufacturing operation.

Shermer said the work is approximately 25-percent complete.

Crews are also working to lay a foundation that can support new heavy equipment in the existing GRI tank head manufacturing shop.

The largest press in the shop now is a 400-ton press, but the company will install a 700-ton press under which a tractor-trailer will be able to drive in the coming months, Shermer said.

The equipment for the expansion has been ordered an manufactured in Japan, and has been disassembled and is on its way to Natchez in a seafaring vessel, Shermer said.

“When it gets here, there will be about $4 million in equipment coming in on barges,” he said.

The company is also working with Copiah-Lincoln Community College to develop a transitional pathway for welding graduates to get employment in the welding industry, Shermer said.

GRI’s work includes large-scale, specialty engineering, fabrication and construction services to customers in the oil and gas, power generation, liquefied natural gas, petro-chemical and other industries.

Applications to work for GRI can be made in person at the company’s 21 Moran Road location or at the WIN Job Center at 107 Col. John Pitchford Parkway.