Southern Company, through its Mississippi Power subsidiary, will provide 30 megawatts of electricity to the Wellman Company, a new Mississippi plastics manufacturer.

In early 1998, Wellman will begin manufacturing plastic beads used to make plastic bottles at a new manufacturing facility in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

Southern Company was chosen based on its market rate studies, cooperative rate designs and Mississippi Power’s economic development efforts. The final agreement is the result of an innovative arrangement between Southern Company and South Mississippi Electric Power Association. Southern Company will sell the electricity wholesale to SMEPA, which will resell it to Coast Electric Power Association, Wellman’s retail electric service provider.

“This kind of cooperation between utilities and state and local economic development organizations benefits everyone involved,” said Fred Williams, Southern Company’s senior vice president of wholesale power marketing. “More importantly, it supports a new industry that is a significant addition to Bay St. Louis’ local economy.”

Southern Company’s wholesale power marketing division, which works to maximize the value of assets at the company’s five utilities in the Southeast, will make the transactions. Southern Company also executes wholesale energy transactions separately through its Southern Energy Inc. subsidiary.

Southern Company, the largest producer of electricity in the United States, is the parent firm of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Savannah Electric. Based in Atlanta, Southern Company supplies electricity in eight countries on four continents and provides energy-related marketing, trading and technical services and wireless telecommunications. Southern Company’s common stock is one of the 20 most widely held corporate stocks in America.