Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NATCHEZ – Employees at the Natchez location of Enerfab Inc. helped build a 268-foot tall petrochemical tower that won a national award for manufacturing.

Enerfab announced this week that the massively tall pressure vessel earned the Fabricated Product of the Year award from Steel Tank Institute/Steel Plate Fabricators Association.

“In Fall 2023, a major petrochemical plant suffered a catastrophic collapse of one of its largest refining towers. Thankfully, nobody was injured by the event devastated operations,” Enerfab said it its project description. “Under significant financial and operational stress, the owner sought bids from around the world to get the replacement column built as quickly as possible. Every other fabricator said it would take at least 18 months. WE did it in 26 weeks. 268 feet across two fabrication shops.”

The company described how it used multiple facilities to fabricate the tow. “To accelerate the build, we overlapped significant portions of the man-hours by building the bottom half at our Natchez, MS, shop and the top half at our Cincinnati, OH, shop before combining them and shipping the tower for installation,” Enerfab said in a social media post.

The tower was construction by Enerfab Process Solutions LLC teams. It is 10 feet, 6 inches in diameter; has a capacity of 145,000 gallons; and is 300 steel tons.

The Gulf Coast Fabrication Shop, located in Natchez, is 735,000 square feet and provides huge, full-service custom fabrication facility to the Enerfab fleet, adding more flexibility and capacity for production equipment fabrication projects.