FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING AWARDED CONTRACT OPTION FOR CVN 77 ENGINEERING WORK

NEWPORT NEWS, Va., January 11, 1999 –Newport News Shipbuilding (NYSE: NNS), announced today that the U. S. Navy has exercised a contract option valued at approximately $60 million for engineering work on the next Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

The as-yet unnamed CVN 77 will serve as the first transition ship to a new class of carriers. The original planning contract for CVN 77, awarded in September 1998, included three options that, if exercised, would bring the total value of this contract to approximately $190 million. To date, the approximate total value of the contract is $106 million. Full construction authorization and funding is expected in the year 2000.

Work performed under the contract option will include research and development tasks such as evaluating new and modified shipboard systems and technologies; conducting engineering analysis; and developing contract data packages for ship design efforts.

Program objectives for CVN 77 include incorporating new sensor and communication system technology and reducing total ownership cost of the ship while improving certain operational capabilities.

Newport News Shipbuilding designs and constructs nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for the U.S. Navy and provides life-cycle maintenance services for ships in the Navy fleet. The company employs 18,000 people and has annual revenues of approximately $1.8 billion. Visit NNS on the Web at www.nns.com.