ST. LOUIS (AP) — The nation's biggest lead producer says it's now abandoning plans to build a new plant in the eastern Missouri town of Herculaneum.

The Doe Run Co.'s chief operating officer, Jerry Pyatt, said in a statement Friday that the company concluded that erecting the plant "would generate an unacceptable risk to the company."

Doe Run has announced it would close by the end of next year the existing smelter in Herculaneum, a Mississippi River town of 3,600 residents about 30 miles south of St. Louis.

The company has said the new plant would have used a new production process it said significantly cut emissions, and that the new site would be ready for use by the time the old one is shuttered.