About 600 jobs at LeTourneau Technologies’ flooded yard south of Vicksburg will be safe when the water recedes despite an announcement Monday that the company is being sold to a Milwaukee-based mining equipment maker, local plant officials said they have been told.

Houston-based Rowan Companies plans to sell LeTourneau to Joy Global Inc. for $1.1 billion in cash, subject to federal regulatory approval the company expects in 60 days. Both corporate boards have signed off on the deal, inked in the midst of the second flood shutdown in four years at the yard.

Still, plant manger Bo-D Massey said, it’ll be back to business as usual once water covering the main access road recedes.

“We still have a rig to finish and we’ll get back to work making product,” Massey said after a conference call with higher-ups hours after details of the sale were made public.

The $150 million Joe Douglas, third in a line of 240-C class shallow water rigs built in Vicksburg, is the yard’s lone major job. Its June delivery date is delayed and has doubled as a vehicle for backup power for the plant since May 5, when a pared-down crew of about 100 workers hopped boats to the inundated riverside grounds. In 2008, the plant closed for nearly two months and a mile-long section of the eastbound lane washed out.

LeTourneau, which began as a munitions plant in 1944, designs, builds and supports equipment for the mining and oil and gas drilling industries. Joy Global manufactures and services equipment for surface and underground mining of coal and other mineral ores through two branded subsidiaries.

A sale or spinoff of LeTourneau was announced in 2008, then shelved with the onset of the recession. If completed, the sale will place LeTourneau’s Vicksburg and Longview, Texas, facilities in Joy Global’s surface mining equipment business.

“We are pleased to enter into this agreement with Joy to monetize our investment in LeTourneau,” Rowan president and CEO Matt Ralls said in a statement. “This transaction is consistent with our stated strategy to separate non-core businesses, and we expect that most of the after-tax proceeds, estimated at approximately $875 million, will ultimately be redeployed into our offshore drilling business, either through continued growth of our high-spec jack-up fleet or expansion into the ultra-deepwater drilling segment.”

“We also expect this transaction to create additional opportunities for LeTourneau and its employees, who will become part of an organization that is focused on manufacturing and will continue to encourage further innovations in both the mining equipment and drilling systems businesses,” Ralls said.

“This acquisition represents a compelling opportunity for Joy Global Inc. and our shareholders, with strong growth prospects for both the mining products and drilling products business segments,” said Mike Sutherlin, president and CEO of Joy Global, in a statement.

“Oil and gas has been defined as a strategic growth opportunity for a number of years, and LeTourneau gives us a great entry point into this sector. We welcome the LeTourneau team to Joy Global Inc. and look forward to working together to pursue the growth opportunities that come with the combined business.”

In Monday trading, Joy Global gained 88 cents a share, to $88.36. Shares of Rowan fell back 8 cents, to $37.96.