Fluor Books $1.8B For Marathon's Expansion Of Louisiana Refinery

Irving, TX - Fluor Corporation will provide project management, engineering and procurement services for Marathon Oil Corporation's projected $3.2B project that will expand the crude oil refining capacity of the company's Garyville, La., refinery by 180,000 barrels per day. Fluor booked $1.8B in its fourth quarter 2006 backlog which includes Fluor's services, the value of procured materials, and the construction contracts under Fluor's direct management.

"Fluor has a long, successful history in executing projects for Marathon. This is a large-scale project which allows Fluor to demonstrate our capabilities and value," said David Seaton, Fluor's Energy & Chemicals Group President.

Fluor will provide project and construction management services to assist Marathon in integrating all components of the project and will also provide engineering and procurement and construction management services for the refinery's crude/vacuum and delayed coker units, as well as utilities and offsites. The new facilities will incorporate the latest safety and environmental control technologies at the refinery.

In addition to the installation of a new crude and vacuum distillation unit, expansion plans call for the construction of infrastructure and other process units with the following design capacities: a 44,000 barrels per day (bpd) delayed coker, a 70,000 bpd heavy gas oil hydrocracker, a 65,000 bpd reformer and a 47,000 bpd kerosene hydrotreater. The project will increase Garyville's refining capacity from 245,000 bpd to 425,000 bpd and Marathon's total refining capacity from 974,000 bpd to 1,154,000 bpd.

During the expansion, Fluor will manage local construction contractors that will require an average of 2,000 workers with up to 4,000 workers at peak periods to complete the construction.

Construction is expected to begin in mid-2007 with startup planned for the fourth quarter 2009.

SOURCE: Fluor Corporation