(Source: Business Wire)KBR (NYSE: KBR) today announced that it has been awarded a contract by Chevron USA Inc. for the front-end engineering and design (FEED) of the topsides for the proposed Big Foot development facility. The Big Foot field is located in the Walker Ridge Block 29 of the Gulf of Mexico and is owned by Chevron USA Inc. (operator), Statoil Gulf of Mexico LLC and Marubeni Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. The proposed facility will be installed in 5,300 feet of water approximately 200 miles from New Orleans and 35 miles south of Chevron's producing Tahiti field.

The goal is to develop Big Foot with a dry-tree floating drilling and production facility. The hull would be an extended tension leg platform (ETLP), and the topside oil and gas processing facilities would include inlet separation, gas compression, dehydration and export, oil treatment and export pumping, produced water treatment, and required utility systems. Water injection facilities would be provided with the initial facility installation to enable reservoir pressure maintenance early in the life of the field. KBR will provide engineering and project management services to develop the process design; specify the required equipment; layout, modularize and integrate the decks; perform the necessary structural analyses; and provide the electrical power generation and distribution system designed to support the platform and the downhole electrical submersible pump requirements. KBR will also assist Chevron in estimating the cost of the facility and plan the subsequent phases of the development.

"We are proud to have been selected as the contractor of choice by Chevron for the Big Foot topsides project," said Roy Oelking, Executive Vice President, KBR Oil and Gas. "We are pleased with the opportunity to reenter the offshore engineering market in the Gulf of Mexico alongside an industry leader such as Chevron. I am confident that KBR will tap into its vast engineering portfolio and execute a quality FEED for our client."

KBR is a global engineering, construction and services company supporting the energy, hydrocarbon, government services, minerals, civil infrastructure, power and industrial markets. For more information, visit www.kbr.com.

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