J. Ray McDermott Awarded Two Offshore Construction Projects

Business Wire, May 5, 2008

HOUSTON -- McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR) ("McDermott"), announced today that subsidiaries of J. Ray McDermott, S.A. ("J. Ray") were recently awarded two contracts for offshore construction projects. Both of the contracts will be included in McDermott's second quarter 2008 backlog, and have a combined value in excess of $500 million.

The first award, from OOO LUKOIL-Nizhnevolzhskneft, a subsidiary of OAO LUKOIL Oil Company, is a contract to install offshore facilities in the Yuri Korchagin field. J. Ray's scope of work includes the transportation and installation of the piles for the ice-resistant fixed platform LSP-1, as well as transportation and installation of Single Point Mooring substructure, piles and the topsides.

The second award, from Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, is an engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract for work on the Kipper Tuna Gas Project located in the Bass Strait, Victoria, Australia. "This is a very significant contract for J. Ray, as it encompasses a wide range of services and marks a return to working with Esso Australia," said Bob Deason, Chief Executive Officer of J. Ray.

McDermott is an engineering and construction company, with specialty manufacturing and service capabilities, focused on energy infrastructure. McDermott's customers are predominantly utilities and other power generators, major and national oil companies, and the United States Government. With its global operations, McDermott operates in over 20 countries with more than 20,000 employees, and can be found on the internet at www.mcdermott.com.

In accordance with the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, McDermott International, Inc., cautions that statements in this press release which are forward-looking and which provide other than historical information, involve risks and uncertainties that may impact actual results. The forward-looking statements in this press release include statements regarding the combined value, scope and execution of the listed projects. Although McDermott's management believes that the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable, McDermott can give no assurance that those expectations will prove to have been correct. Those statements are made by using various underlying assumptions and are subject to numerous uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, the risk that McDermott may experience delays, changes, cancellations or other difficulties executing such contracts. If one or more of these risks materialize, or if underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those expected. For a more complete discussion of these and other risk factors, please see McDermott's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007.