Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) today announced that it has been awarded a
contract worth approximately $570 million for work on the Long Lake
Project, a joint venture between OPTI Canada Inc. and Nexen Canada Ltd.
to produce a premium synthetic crude oil from oil sands bitumen. Fluor
booked the award in its second quarter.
Long Lake is the country's first oil sands project to integrate
steam-assisted gravity drainage extraction technology with on-site
upgrading and employs a new approach to the upgrading process. Together,
these provide a significant operating cost advantage over current
approaches to synthetic crude production from oil sands bitumen, at a
comparable capital cost.
Fluor will perform detailed engineering and procurement services for the
three main upgrader process units and for the utilities and offsite
areas of the project. It has been extensively involved with the
project's front-end engineering and design since December 2001.
"This award resulted from our outstanding performance on the front-end
engineering and design work and the strong relationships which have been
developed," said Jeff Faulk, Fluor's group president of Oil, Gas & Power.
"Fluor has proven that it is committed to the success of this project
and the joint venture," said Jim Arnold, vice president and project
director of OPTI.
Spanning more than 85 square miles, OPTI/Nexen's Long Lake lease is
strategically situated in an area of high-quality, high-prospective oil
sands just southeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Long Lake's
recoverable bitumen reserves and resources have been independently
estimated at 1.9 billion barrels.
The upgrader will produce about 60,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil
per day from heavy oil recovered from underground deposits by steam
injection. The synthetic crude oil will be sold to refineries for
further processing and ultimately reach customers as motor fuel and
other petroleum products.
The upgrader, scheduled for startup in July 2007, will be the first
facility to fully license Fluor's sulphur recovery technology and will
represent the world's first commercial implementation of the OrCrude(TM)
upgrading technology developed by OPTI's parent company, Ormat
Industries of Israel. Fluor will execute the work primarily out of its
offices in Calgary, Canada, and New Delhi, India. Nearly 600 Fluor
employees will contribute to the success of the project.
Fluor is a preferred contractor of full engineering, procurement,
construction, maintenance and project management services for Canadian
and international customers in a variety of industries, including oil,
gas, power and petrochemicals. Fluor has been executing work in Canada
since 1949.
Fluor provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering,
procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and project
management. Headquartered in Aliso Viejo, Calif., Fluor is a FORTUNE 500
company with revenues of nearly $9 billion in 2003. For more
information, visit www.fluor.com.
For further information, please contact: Media Relations, Jerry
Holloway, +1-949-349-7411, or Lisa Boyette, +1-949-349-3652, or Investor
Relations, Lila Churney, +1-949-349-3909, or fax, +1-949-349-5375, all
of Fluor Corporation.
Media Relations, Jerry Holloway, +1-949-349-7411, or LisaBoyette, +1-949-349-3652, or Investor Relations, Lila Churney,+1-949-349-3909, or fax, +1-949-349-5375, all of Fluor Corporation//Web site: http://www.fluor.com /