Babcock & Wilcox Wins $27 Million Scrubber Order.

Business Editors

BARBERTON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2000

The Babcock & Wilcox Company, a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR), has been awarded a $27 million contract by Utility Engineering Corporation to supply to Public Service Co. of Colorado environmental control equipment for the utility's Cherokee and Valmont Generating Stations.

Under the contract, B&W will provide vertical-flow dry scrubbers for Cherokee Station units 3 and 4, and Valmont unit 5.

Cherokee unit 3 is a 152 Megawatt (MW) B&W unit originally supplied in 1962. Unit 4, rated at 352 MW, was supplied by another company in 1968. The plant is located just north of downtown Denver and burns low-sulfur coal supplied by several mines in the western part of the state. Valmont unit 5, a 189 MW unit supplied by another company, went into service in 1964. It is located in Boulder, Colorado, and uses low-sulfur coal or natural gas as fuel.

The scrubbers are similar to the ones B&W recently supplied to Public Service of Colorado's Hayden Generating Station units 1 and 2. The Hayden unit 1 scrubbers began commercial operation in December 1998, with the unit 2 scrubbers following five months later.

Engineering on the project has begun in B&W's Barberton, Ohio, facility. Cherokee unit 3 and Valmont 5 are scheduled to start up in spring 2002, with Cherokee unit 4 set to start up later that same year.

According to James F. Wood, Babcock & Wilcox president, "We are extremely pleased to win this award, especially because it follows our previous work on Public Service of Colorado's Hayden Station. This new contract speaks well of not only the trust this customer has in the B&W team and technology, but also in our ability to deliver cost-effective solutions which improve the environmental performance of coal-fired electric generation."

Coal-fired electric generation provides more than fifty percent of the electricity in the United States, said Wood.

Dry scrubbing involves spraying a highly atomized slurry or aqueous solution of an alkaline reagent into the hot flue gas to absorb sulfur dioxide emissions. These systems are placed before the dust collector, where additional SO2 and particulate removal take place. The process is used in the United States primarily for lower-sulfur coal and waste-fired applications.

Public Service Company of Colorado provides electricity, natural gas and other services to 1.4 million customers in Colorado. It is a subsidiary of New Century Energies which serves electricity and natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma. Utility Engineering Corporation, also owned by New Century Energies, is a full service engineering firm.

The Babcock & Wilcox Company is a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc., a leading worldwide energy services company. McDermott subsidiaries manufacture steam-generating equipment, environmental equipment, and products for the U.S. government. They also provide engineering and construction services for industrial, utility and hydrocarbon processing facilities, and to the offshore oil and natural gas industries.

Editor's Note: Babcock & Wilcox is located on the Internet at www.babcock.com. Journalists will find company news, fact sheets, and industry links at http://www.babcock.com/pgg/pr/pressroom.html.

Though there are many companies that contain the name Babcock, the U.S.-based Babcock & Wilcox is the original, founded by George Babcock and Stephen Wilcox in 1867.