Stolt said the contract, awarded by ChevronTexaco subsidiary CABGOC, was worth US4660 million of which its share is estimated to $240 million.

The contract is for an EPIC project for the engineering, fabrication and installation of five offshore platforms with two linking bridges, the modification of three existing platforms and the installation of 100 kilometres of subsea pipelines ranging in diameter from four to thirty inches, in an average water depth of 100 metres.

A substantial part of the platform fabrication work will be undertaken in the Stolt Offshore managed Sonamet yard at Lobito in Angola. These offshore facilities will be installed in the Sanha and Bomboco fields in the Cabinda area offshore Angola. The operator of these fields is CABGOC, on behalf of a consortium comprised of Sonangol, ChevronTexaco, Agip and TotalFinaElf.

The engineering subsidiaries of Stolt Offshore, Paragon Engineering Services in Houston and Paragon Litwin in Paris, expect to undertake some 140,000 man-hours of engineering for the design of process modules, platforms and pipelines.

Bernard Vossier, Chief Executive Officer said, "This award reflects our ability to undertake the full scope of engineering, procurement, fabrication and installation on a project of this nature in West Africa. It follows three earlier projects that we have undertaken for CABGOC in recent years, all of which have been in consortium with DSME.