November 04, 2009 18:01 ET

Willbros Awarded Two Spreads of Fayetteville Express Pipeline Construction

HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwire - November 4, 2009) - Willbros Group, Inc. (NYSE: WG) announced today that it has been awarded the construction contract for spreads three and four of the Fayetteville Express Pipeline (FEP). The approximately 185-mile natural gas pipeline will originate in Conway County, Arkansas, continue eastward through White County, Arkansas, and terminate at an interconnect with Trunkline Gas Company in Panola County, Mississippi. FEP will parallel existing utility corridors where possible to minimize impact to the environment, communities and landowners. FEP is a joint venture between Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. The Willbros scope of work includes 120 miles of 42-inch pipeline, beginning near Bald Knob, Arkansas and ending at the Trunkline interconnection. The project is expected to begin construction in April 2010 and be completed in October 2010.

Randy Harl, President and Chief Executive Officer, remarked, "This is a significant project resulting from the continuing development of the Fayetteville region. The FEP award improves 2010 visibility for our U.S. pipeline construction business, and we remain convinced that current favorable economics, combined with the benefits natural gas provides to the environment, will drive build-out of take-away capacity in areas such as the Fayetteville, Haynesville and Marcellus shales. We anticipate additional U.S. pipeline construction opportunities for Willbros as new infrastructure will be required to transport hydrocarbons to regions with growing demand. We are pleased to have been selected and look forward to performing this project with FEP and its partners."

Willbros Group, Inc. is an independent contractor serving the oil, gas, power, refining and petrochemical industries, providing engineering, construction, turnaround, maintenance, life cycle extension services and facilities development and operations services to industry and government entities worldwide. For more information on Willbros, please visit our web site at www.willbros.com.

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, which address activities, events or developments the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, are forward-looking statements. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements, including the potential for additional investigations; the disruptions to the global credit markets; the current global recession; the possible losses arising from the discontinuation of operations and the sale of the Nigeria assets; fines and penalties by government agencies; the identification of one or more other issues that require restatement of one or more prior period financial statements; the existence of material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting; availability of quality management; availability and terms of capital; changes in, or the failure to comply with, government regulations; ability to remain in compliance with, or obtain waivers under, the Company's loan agreements and indentures; the promulgation, application, and interpretation of environmental laws and regulations; future E&P capital expenditures; oil, gas, gas liquids, and power prices and demand, the amount and location of planned pipelines, the refinery crack spread and planned refinery outages and upgrades, the effective tax rate of the different countries where the work is being conducted, development trends of the oil, gas, power, refining and petrochemical industries; changes in the political and economic environment of the countries in which the Company has operations, as well as other risk factors described from time to time in the Company's documents and reports filed with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update publicly such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.