An $8.9 million contract has been awarded to Pascagoula’s VT Halter Marine Inc. to help build a 285-foot platform supply vessel for a Louisiana company.

Boyd “Butch” King, the company’s chief executive, said VT Halter Marine will fabricate the hull with deckhouses. He says the work will be done at Halter’s Moss Point yard, which employs about 175 people.

The supply vessel being built for use by Houma, La.-based Candies Shipbuilders is scheduled to be delivered in January 2010. Candies Shipbuilders will arrange for the vessel to be towed to the company’s Houma yard for final outfitting.

Dale Lapeyrouse, operations manager for Candies, said that the vessel will assist in energy platform operations offshore.