The contract will increase PCH's work in hand on the project to more than $20 million.

"We have been there (Caspian Sea) for four years now and have established a strong operating base, a skilled workforce and a reputation based on quality and safety," said managing director, James Cullen.

McDermott will be constructing two 14,000 tonne integrated services decks as part of Phase II of the three phase ACG project.

In June 2002 PCH received its first major award from McDermott with the scaffolding and coatings work for Phase I, which involves the construction of one integrated services deck.

That work is currently in progress and is scheduled to continue through to June 2004. Work on the two new Phase II decks begins immediately and will run through to August 2006.

Cullen said that additional contracts were expected to become available in other areas of Phase II of the estimated $11 billion ACG project.

"Once all of the Phase II contracts are let we expect to be in the running for Phase III work, which would run through to 2008 or 2009," he said.