Army Corps Awards Fluor $1.5 Billion Contract

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Army Corps Awards Fluor $1.5 Billion Contract

By CHRIS CZIBORR

Orange County Business Journal

Fluor Corp. got $1.5 billion worth of good news from the U.S. military last week when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded up to $15 billion in general construction contracts that will be split by 10 engineering companies.

Each winner is set to get up to $500 million worth of work in the first year of the five-year deals, with the possibility of $250 million in each of the next four years.

The contract win takes some of the sting out of Fluor’s loss on $1.8 billion in Iraq reconstruction work that rival Bechtel nabbed from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Fluor previously had lost on $1 billion worth of work to San Francisco-based Bechtel following the battle to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq.

The $15 billion in contracts aren’t limited to work in Iraq. Orange County-based Fluor and the other engineering companies could be called upon to work “anywhere within the Central Command’s area of operations,” said Joan Kibler, spokeswoman for the Army Corps’ Winchester, Va.-based Transatlantic Programs Center.

The U.S. Central Command is active in 25 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kibler said it was too early to say how much of the $1.5 billion in Fluor work would take place in Iraq.

“Certainly the new contracts could be used in places like Kuwait, Qatar or Bahrain, where we’ve had a number of programs,” Kibler said. “Afghanistan is a likely area because we have a significant amount of work there building barracks for that country’s national army.”

Fluor could be asked to do restoration, renovation or repair work, temporary base operations and short-term operations and maintenance services.

Fluor already has completed $300 million of work on a similar Army Corps contract that calls for the company to restore and maintain the electrical grid in Iraq. That work could increase to $500 million in value.

Other companies winning a piece of the $15 billion included Parsons Corp., a venture between Washington Group International Inc. and Black & Veatch Holding Co., and Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc., a unit of Houston-based Halliburton Co.

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