ROUSES POINT -- Wyeth Pharmaceuticals will keep its plant here open a year longer than planned.

"We will be continuing manufacturing through 2009 in order to meet ongoing product demands and ensure we have reliable product supply for our patients and customers," said Wendy Kouba, a spokesman for the company's corporate headquarters in Collegeville, Pa.

The news was announced to employees during a series of all-hands meetings on Wednesday.

"I think it's great," said Shana Blain of Champlain, a process operator who has worked at the plant since 1997. "But I think it would be better if they would tell us there is a complete (sale)."

Wyeth has been marketing the facility since soon after the eventual closure was announced in October 2005. Wednesday, employees reported to the Press-Republican that they had been told there are potential purchasers on the hook.

"There's two possible buyers," Blain said.

The changeover to another pharmaceutical firm would mean more security, Blain said, but she considers another year of the status quo nothing to sneeze at.

"I just want a paycheck," she said. "I like my Wyeth money."

Wyeth's decision came as no surprise to some, who, while they didn't want to be quoted in the newspaper, said they'd heard company operations in Ireland -- where Rouses Point's Premarin production is being moved -- were gearing up slower than expected.

Kouba wasn't available Wednesday night to comment on whether that is so.

In November 2006, Wyeth hiked Rouses Point's short-term production and manufacturing of the antidepressant Effexor in response to problems at its plant in Puerto Rico, where other product lines had been transferred. The Food and Drug Administration cited that operation for several violations of good-manufacturing-practice regulations.

Then, Kouba told the Press-Republican that the situation meant no change in the closure timetable at Rouses Point.

The one-year extension at the plant is the biggest news since the announcement in late December 2006 that Wyeth would not be shutting down operations "for the foreseeable future" of its Research Chemical Development Pilot Plant in Rouses Point, which employs about 118.

Rouses Point Mayor George Rivers heard about Wednesday's announcement through the grapevine and pronounced it welcome.

"They're still paying their taxes; they're still using water, and they're still using electricity," he said of Wyeth.