NEWPORT NEWS, Va., June 28, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that the company has received a $745 million cost-plus-incentive fee contract for the inactivation of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65). The work will be done at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division.

The ship was towed from Naval Station Norfolk to NNS on June 20 under the existing planning contract. NNS will defuel the ship’s eight reactors and prepare Enterprise for its eventual transit to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility. The work is scheduled to complete in August 2016. More than 1,000 employees will support her inactivation.

“Although Newport News Shipbuilding has defueled and refueled many ships, including Enterprise, this is the first inactivation of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,” said Chris Miner, NNS’ vice president, in-service aircraft carrier programs. “Our shipbuilders know Enterprise well and have enjoyed working on her over her decades of service. We are extremely proud of her great legacy, so it is with heavy hearts that we will work to retire this one-of-a-kind ship.”

Built by Newport News shipbuilders and launched in September 1960, Enterprise served a record 51 consecutive years. The ship was the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the only one in her class. Enterprise aided in the Cuban Missile Crisis and operations Enduring Freedom and New Dawn, as well as naval maritime security operations.

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

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: