Babcock & Wilcox Signs Scrubber Alliance.

Business Editors

BARBERTON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 2003

The Babcock & Wilcox Company ("B&W"), a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR), has entered into a 10-year alliance with Progress Energy Carolinas, a subsidiary of Progress Energy, to supply environmental control equipment for the utility's North Carolina power plants.

Initially, B&W's work will include the supply of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) units, more commonly called scrubbers, for Units 1 and 2 at Progress Energy's Asheville Steam Plant in Skyland, N.C. Units 1 and 2 are both nominal 200 MW coal-fired boilers. B&W will also supply a scrubber for Roxboro Unit 3, a nominal 700 MW coal-fired boiler located near Roxboro, N.C. Design and engineering for the scrubber units will take place at B&W's Barberton, Ohio, headquarters.

Installation of the scrubbers is in response to North Carolina's Clean Smokestacks legislation that requires utility companies to reduce pollutants at coal-fired power plants over the next decade. The scrubber units at Asheville and Roxboro will be designed to achieve approximately 97 percent sulfur dioxide removal from the plants' emissions.

While the initial alliance calls for the supply of FGD units on three boilers at Asheville and Roxboro, eight additional Progress Energy units at Roxboro and four other plants will receive environmental controls upgrades as the alliance continues.

"We are extremely pleased to win this award and to have the opportunity to team with our customer in this type of alliance," said David Keller, B&W president and chief operating officer. "Partnerships like this can save time and money and, ultimately, enhance the success of a project because they allow us to combine our strengths. This, in turn, enables development of the very best environmental solutions for our customers and the communities they serve."

Progress Energy, (NYSE:PGN), headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune 250 diversified energy company with more than 21,900 megawatts of generation capacity and $8 billion in annual revenues. The company's holdings include two electric utilities (Progress Energy Carolinas and Progress Energy Florida) serving more than 2.8 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Progress Energy also includes non-regulated operations covering merchant generation, energy marketing, natural gas exploration, fuel extraction, rail services and broadband capacity.

McDermott is a leading worldwide energy services company. McDermott's subsidiaries provide engineering, fabrication, installation, procurement, research, manufacturing, environmental systems, project management and facilities management services to a variety of customers in the power and energy industries, including the U.S. Department of Energy. Its subsidiary, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, designs, engineers, fabricates, constructs and services power generation and related systems and equipment.