Fluor Corporation is an American multinational engineering and
construction firm headquartered in
Irving, Texas. It is a holding company that provides services through its subsidiaries in the following areas: oil and gas, industrial and infrastructure, government and power. It is the largest publicly traded engineering & construction company in the
Fortune 500 rankings and is listed as 259th overall.
Fluor was founded in 1912 by John Simon Fluor as Fluor Construction Company. It grew quickly, predominantly by building oil refineries, pipelines, and other facilities for the oil and gas industry, at first in California, and then in the Middle East and globally. In the late 1960s, it began diversifying into oil drilling, coal mining and other raw materials like lead. A global recession in the oil and gas industry and losses from its mining operation led to restructuring and layoffs in the 1980s. Fluor sold its oil operations and diversified its construction work into a broader range of services and industries.
In the 1990s, Fluor introduced new services like equipment rentals and staffing. Nuclear waste cleanup projects and other environmental work became a significant portion of Fluor's revenues. The company also did projects related to the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, rebuilding after the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
, recovering from
Hurricane Katrina and building the
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one o ...
.
Corporate history
Early history
![Fluor Bros Construction headquarters early 1900s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Fluor_Bros_Construction_headquarters_early_1900s.jpg)
Fluor Corporation's predecessor, Rudolph Fluor & Brother, was founded in 1890 by John Simon Fluor
and his two brothers in Oshkosh, Wisconsin
as a saw and paper mill.
John Fluor acted as its president
and contributed $100 in personal savings to help the business get started.
The company was renamed Fluor Bros. Construction Co. in 1903.
In 1912 John Fluor moved to Santa Ana, California for health reasons without his brothers
and founded Fluor Corporation out of his garage
under the name Fluor Construction Company.
By 1924 the business had annual revenues of $100,000 ($1.56 million in 2021 dollars)
and a staff of 100 employees. John Fluor delegated most of the company's operations to his sons, Peter and Simon Fluor.
A $100,000 capital investment was made that year and it was incorporated.
John's eldest son Peter served as head of sales and grew the company to $1.5 million ($20.4 million in 2013 dollars) in revenues by 1929.
In 1929 the company re-incorporated as Fluor Corporation.
By the 1930s, Fluor had operations in Europe, the Middle East and Australia.
Business declined rapidly during the
Great Depression, but picked up again during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. During the war Fluor manufactured
synthetic rubber and was responsible for a substantial portion of high-octane gasoline production in the United States.
A Gas-Gasoline division of Fluor was created in Houston in 1948.
Fluor's headquarters were moved to
Alhambra, an inner suburb of Los Angeles, in 1940 in order to be closer to its oil and gas clients, before moving again to
Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
, California in the 1960s due to concerns about the cost of living and traffic.
John Simon Fluor died in 1944. He was succeeded by his son Peter Fluor, who died three years later. Peter was followed by Shirley Meserve (1947) and Donald Darnell (1949), then John Simon "Si" Fluor Jr. in 1952 and J. Robert (Bob) Fluor in 1962.
Fluor was listed on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...
in the 1950s.
In 1961, Fluor acquired an interest in construction, design and contracting firm William J. Moran.
Diversification and restructuring
Fluor diversified its business more extensively in 1967, when five companies were merged into a division called Coral Drilling and it started a deep-water oil exploration business in Houston called Deep Oil Technology. It also created Fluor Ocean Services in Houston in 1968
and acquired an interest in other fossil fuel operations in the 1970s.
Fluor acquired a construction company, Pike Corp. of America
and the engineering division of its prior partner in Australia, Utah Construction.
In 1972, Fluor bought land in
Irvine, California
Irvine () is a master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 197 ...
and started building its new headquarters on it.
The following year, the company's oil and gas operations were consolidated under a new entity, Fluor Oil and Gas Corp.
In 1977, Fluor acquired Daniel International Corporation.
Fluor's business had become predominantly international, while Daniel International's $1 billion construction business was mostly domestic. The acquisition allowed the company to use union labor at Fluor, or non-union labor at Daniel, for each client.
Fluor made a $2.9 billion acquisition of a zinc, gold, lead and coal mining operation,
St. Joe Minerals, in 1981
after a bidding competition for the business with
Seagram
The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the ...
.
By the 1980s, Fluor's primary business was building large refineries, petrochemical plants, oil pipelines and other facilities for the gas and oil industry,
especially in the Middle East.
By 1981, Fluor's staff had grown to 29,000 and revenue, backlog, and profits had each increased more than 30 percent over the prior year.
However, by 1984 the mining operation was causing heavy losses
and the oil and gas industry Fluor served was in a worldwide recession
due to declining oil prices.
From 1981 to 1984, Fluor's backlog went from $16 billion to $4 billion.
In 1985 it reported $633 million in losses. David Tappan took Bob Fluor's place as CEO in 1984 after Bob died from cancer
and led a difficult restructuring.
The company sold $750 million in assets, including Fluor's headquarters in Irvine, in order to pay $1 billion in debt.
Staff were reduced from 32,000 to 14,000.
In 1986 Fluor sold all of its oil assets and some of its gold mining operations.
Fluor Engineers, Inc. and Daniel International were merged, forming Fluor Daniel.
By 1987, Fluor had returned to profitability with $26.6 million in profits
and $108.5 million by 1989.
By the end of the restructuring, Fluor had three major divisions: Fluor Daniel, Fluor Construction International and St. Joe Minerals Corp. Each division had its own smaller subsidiaries.
Fluor started being named by ''Engineering News'' as the largest construction and engineering company in the United States.
Fluor's international revenues rebounded.
Having postponed his retirement to help Fluor, Tappan stepped down at the end of 1989 and was replaced by Leslie McCraw.
Recent history
During the restructuring, Fluor's core construction and engineering work was diversified into 30 industries including food, paper manufacturers, prisons and others to reduce its vulnerability to market changes in the oil and gas market.
In the 1990s, the company tried to change its image, calling itself a "diversified technical services" firm.
It started offering equipment rentals, staffing services, and financing for construction projects.
The company began offering environmental cleanup and pollution control services, which grew to half of its new business by 1992.
Fluor's mining business grew from $300 million in 1990 to $1 billion in 1994.
The US government passed environmental regulations in 1995 that led to growth for the Massey Coal Co. business, because it had large reserves of low-sulfur coal.
[Reingold, J. (1995). No respect. Financial World, 164(7), 36.] In 1992, Fluor sold its ownership of Doe Run Company, the world's largest producer of refined lead, which was losing money at the time due to declining lead prices. By 1993, Fluor had revenues of $4.17 billion and 22,000 staff.
In 1997, Fluor's revenues fell almost 50 percent, in part due to the
Asian financial crisis
The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998– ...
and a decrease in overseas business.
Additionally, it suffered losses from an over-budget power plant project in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia. Fluor was a sub-contractor to
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
for the project. Fluor's subsidiaries sued GE alleging that it misrepresented the complexity of the project. Though revenues declined further the following year, profits were increasing.
In 1999, nearly 5,000 workers were laid off from Fluor Daniel and 15 offices were closed. Fluor Daniel was re-structured into four business groups: an engineering and construction firm called Fluor Daniel; an equipment rental, staffing and telecommunications division called Fluor Global Services; a coal-mining business called A.T. Massey Coal Co. and an administrative and support division called Fluor Signature Services.
In January 1998, McCraw (age 63) resigned after being diagnosed with bladder cancer and was replaced by former Shell Oil President, Philip J. Carroll.
That same year, IT Group purchased a 54 percent interest in Fluor Daniel GTI, Fluor's environmental division, for $36.3 million.
Two years later, the coal mining operation under the A.T. Massey Coal Co. name (part of St. Joe) was spun off into its own business.
In 2001, Fluor's four primary subsidiaries were consolidated into a single Fluor Corporation.
In 2002 Alan Boeckmann was appointed as the CEO, followed by David Seaton in 2011.
In 2005, Fluor's headquarters were moved to the
Las Colinas area in
Irving, Texas.
In December 2015, Fluor announced that it would take over Dutch industrial services company
Stork.
The acquisition of this company, which modifies and maintains large power plants, was completed in March 2016, in a stock purchase worth $755 million.
In May 2019, David Seaton stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Carlos Hernandez, who joined the firm in 2007.
Organization
Fluor was ranked 259th in Fortune 500 companies for the year 2022.
It has offices in 25 countries. Many of Fluor's operations are located near natural resources, such as uranium in Canada, oil reserves in the Middle East and mines in Australia. About 30 percent of Fluor's revenues are based in the United States as of 2011.
The Fluor family owns a 3.5 percent interest in the company, while employees own six percent through its profit-sharing program.
Fluor's Board of Directors has 12 "Independent Directors" and the
CEO. The Independent Directors elect a Lead Independent Director every three years that acts as a liaison to the CEO.
Each Independent Director is on two or more of four committees: audit, executive, governance, and organization & compensation. Directors serve a three-year term and are elected by shareholders.
Corporate officers, such as the CEO, are elected each year by a vote of the board.
Fluor received an "A" ranking in
Transparency International
Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil ...
's 2012 anti-corruption study. The company hosts online and in-person anti-corruption training sessions for staff and operates an ethics hotline. Former CEO Alan Boeckmann helped create the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), whereby companies agree to a set of ethics principles. A MarketLine SWOT analysis said Fluor's environmental work "enhances the company's brand image," while often lengthy and unpredictable legal disputes "tarnish the company's brand image and will erode customer confidence."
According to the ''Los Angeles Times'', Fluor is a "major corporate citizen" that supports local charities and civic groups.
It started the Fluor Foundation for its charitable work in 1952 and Fluor Cares in 2010.
The company started the largest employer-sponsored apprenticeship program in California with a four-year program for designers in 1982. Fluor operates a virtual college for employees called Fluor University.
Services
![Fluor construction site Shuaiba, Kuwait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Fluor_construction_site_Shuaiba%2C_Kuwait.jpg)
Fluor is a holding company that provides services through its subsidiaries.
Its subsidiaries provide engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance and project management services. The company has also developed pollution control products, such as the Econamine lineup of carbon capture products.
According to Fluor's 2014 annual report, 67 percent of its work backlog is from the oil and gas industry.
According to the company's website, Fluor's work includes designing and building power plants, petrochemical factories, mining facilities, roads and bridges, government buildings, and manufacturing facilities. The company also performs nuclear cleanup, and other services.
Separate teams of experts, procurement staff, project managers and workers are provided for large projects that are supported by a centralized administrative staff. Fluor has trained more than 100,000 craft workers in Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Pakistan, Kuwait and other countries, where the needed labor skills weren't available locally.
It may also serve clients through a joint venture with another construction firm when a local infrastructure or niche expertise is needed.
Fluor acquired shares of Genentech Inc. in 1981, and it bought a 10 percent interest in a smelter and refinery facility in Gresik, Indonesia in 1995 for $550 million. In 1994, it invested $650 million with the Beacon Group Energy Investment fund to finance energy projects.
Fluor also has a majority interest in
NuScale
NuScale Power is a publicly traded American company that designs and markets small modular reactors (SMRs). It is headquartered in Tigard, Oregon, United States. NuScale has been approved to build reactors in Idaho, in 2029 and 2030. The design ...
LLC., which is developing a new type of 45-megawatt nuclear reactor called a small modular reactor (SMR).
Notable projects
![Fluor water cooling tower (buddha tower) from the early 1900s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Fluor_water_cooling_tower_%28buddha_tower%29_from_the_early_1900s.jpg)
Fluor's first projects were in constructing and grading roads, but by the 1920s it was known for building public facilities, industrial complexes
and serving a growing California oil and gas industry.
It started building office and meter manufacturing facilities for the
Southern California Gas Company
The Southern California Gas Company (trading as SoCalGas) is a utility company based in Los Angeles, California, and a subsidiary of Sempra Energy. It is the primary provider of natural gas to Los Angeles and Southern California.
Overview
Its ...
in 1915, as well as a compressor station for the Industrial Fuel Supply Company in 1919.
Fluor built the first "Buddha Tower" in 1921
in Signal Hill, California, for the Industrial Fuel Supply Company.
The Buddha Tower was a design of water-cooling tower named after the Buddha temples they resemble.
The following year Fluor was awarded a contract by
Richfield Oil
Richfield Oil Corporation was an American petroleum company based in California from 1905 to 1966. In 1966 it merged with Atlantic Refining Company to form the Atlantic Richfield Company (later renamed ARCO).
History
The Richfield Oil Corpora ...
to build a 10,000-gallon-per-day gasoline plant.
Against his father's wishes, Peter Fluor expanded Fluor's business outside of California in the 1930s.
It built refineries in Texas,
as well as oil pipelines and compressor stations from Panhandle, Texas, to Indianapolis, Indiana, for the Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company.
Fluor constructed the
Escondida
Escondida is a copper mine at elevation in the Atacama Desert in Antofagasta Region, Chile.
Geology
The Escondida deposit is one of a cluster of porphyry coppers in an elongated area about 18 km north–south and 3 km east–west a ...
in Chile, which is the second-largest copper mine in the world.
In 1942, Fluor constructed cooling towers and other facilities in Hanford, Washington, for the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
.
It built an expansion of the
Dhahran Airfield
King Abdulaziz Air Base () , also known as Dhahran Air Base and formerly Dhahran International Airport, Dhahran Airport and Dhahran Airfield, is a Royal Saudi Air Force base located in Dhahran in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. Located west ...
in Saudi Arabia for the United States Army in the 1950s
and accepted its first international project for
ARAMCO
Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...
in the Middle East.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Fluor built the first all-hydrogen refinery in Kuwait and the first exclusively offshore power plant for the
Atlantic Richfield Company
ARCO ( ) is a brand of gasoline stations currently owned by Marathon Petroleum after BP sold its rights. BP commercializes the brand in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States an ...
.
It also constructed pumps and ports
for the
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one o ...
,
which traversed 800 miles from northern Alaska to
Valdez, Alaska
Valdez ( ; Alutiiq: ) is a city in the Chugach Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to the 2020 US Census, the population of the city is 3,985, up from 3,976 in 2010. It is the third most populated city in Alaska's Unorganized Boro ...
,
and the world's largest offshore facility for natural gas on the island of
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
.
In 1976, it was awarded a $5 billion project for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia, to design facilities that capture
sour gas, which is expelled from oil wells as waste, in order to refine it into fuel. That same year a partially completed copper and cobalt mine in Africa was cancelled due to a war in the neighboring region of Angola and declining copper prices.
In 1979, Fluor had 13 projects for building United States power plants and had served more than half of the world's government-owned oil companies.
![Radiation cleanup](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Radiation_cleanup.jpg)
Fluor has been working on the cleanup and shutdown of atomic energy plants in Ohio and Washington since the 1990s.
In 1992, Fluor won a contract with the United States Energy Department to clean up nuclear waste.
By 1996 Hanford was the most contaminated nuclear site in the US and the
US Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. ...
was conducting a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup of the site. Fluor Hanford Inc. replaced Westinghouse Hanford Co. on the project.
After a chemical explosion in 1997, 11 workers filed a lawsuit alleging they were denied appropriate medical attention and protective gear. Fluor and the workers disagreed on whether the explosion resulted in any injuries. In 2005 the US Department of Energy fined Fluor for safety violations
and that same year a jury awarded $4.7 million in damages to eleven pipe fitters who claimed they were fired after complaining that a valve rated for 1,975 pounds per square inch (psi) was being used where a valve rated at 2,235 psi was needed.
Fluor built the
Aladdin Hotel & Casino in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
in 2001 for $1.4 billion.
In 2004, the company was awarded a $1.1 billion project with AMEC to help rebuild the water, power and civic infrastructure of Iraq after the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
.
Fluor has also built a rail line in Europe and missile sites in California and possibly Arizona.
The company provided disaster recovery services in Louisiana after
Hurricane Katrina.
In 2010 Fluor provided workers to clean up oil tar on beaches in Florida and Alabama after the
''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill.
In December 2012, Fluor was awarded a $3.14 billion contract to build a
new Tappan Zee Bridge
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
over the Hudson River.
See also
*
NuScale Power
NuScale Power is a publicly traded American company that designs and markets small modular reactors (SMRs). It is headquartered in Tigard, Oregon, United States. NuScale has been approved to build reactors in Idaho, in 2029 and 2030. The design ...
*
Genentech
References
External links
Official Fluor Corporation website
{{Authority control
Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States
Oilfield services companies
Petroleum engineering
Petroleum in Texas
Companies based in Irving, Texas
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1912
1912 establishments in California
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Multinational companies headquartered in the United States
Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1912