NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Feb. 5, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that it is opening an office in Houston, Texas, for business development efforts to pursue opportunities in the energy infrastructure market for its Avondale subsidiary.

“We have a great workforce at Avondale with unique engineering and manufacturing capabilities that have been demonstrated for many decades,” said Mike Petters, HII’s president and chief executive officer. “Additionally, these skilled men and women are located in the heart of a region where there is more manufacturing demand than the current suppliers can meet, particularly in the energy markets. Coupling this talent with our world-class facilities leads us to believe we have everything in place at Avondale to excel in this market.”

Chris Kastner, HII’s corporate vice president and general manager, corporate development, who is leading this effort for Avondale, added, “We are in active discussions with respected companies in the oil and gas infrastructure market. We’ve satisfied ourselves that the engineering and construction elements of these projects are very comparable to shipbuilding, and we are working very hard, both internally and with prospective customers, evaluating and competing for new opportunities. These upcoming large projects should be made in America by American craftsmen and craftswomen.”

Avondale will transition into this market by building upon the shipyard’s 30-plus years of modular engineering and construction expertise and nearly 75 years of experience in heavy manufacturing. Located on the Mississippi River near New Orleans, the 268-acre facility has the potential to employ up to 10,000 highly skilled craft men and women.

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) designs, builds and maintains nuclear and non-nuclear ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and provides after-market services for military ships around the globe. For more than a century, HII has built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. HII also provides a wide variety of products and services to the commercial energy industry and other government customers, including the Department of Energy. Employing about 37,000 in Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana and California, its primary business divisions are Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding. For more information about Avondale, visit: http://www.hii-avondale.com.

Statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Factors that may cause such differences include: changes in government and customer priorities and requirements (including government budgetary constraints, shifts in defense spending, and changes in customer short-range and long-range plans); our ability to obtain new contracts, estimate our costs and perform effectively; risks related to our spin-off from Northrop Grumman (including our increased costs and leverage); our ability to realize the expected benefits from consolidation of our Gulf Coast facilities; natural disasters; adverse economic conditions in the United States and globally; and other risk factors discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There may be other risks and uncertainties that we are unable to predict at this time or that we currently do not expect to have a material adverse effect on our business, and we undertake no obligations to update any forward-looking statements.

About Huntington Ingalls Industries

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) designs, builds and maintains nuclear and non-nuclear ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and provides after-market services for military ships around the globe. For more than a century, HII has built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder at its Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding divisions. Employing about 37,000 in Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana and California, HII also provides a wide variety of products and services to the commercial energy industry and other government customers. For more information, visit: