Fluor Telecommunications Services, a unit of Irvine-based...

Fluor Telecommunications Services, a unit of Irvine-based Fluor Corp., said Friday that its FCC application to provide mobile telephone service to offshore drillers and ships in the Gulf of Mexico is progressing with the addition of a third partner, Gulf Star Communications. Fluor Telecommunications and its partner, NewVector Communications of Bellevue, Wash., said the addition is significant because Gulf Star had been one of the Fluor partnership’s competitors for two available licenses to provide cellular service to the area.

Gulf Star had made its own application to the Federal Communications Commission before the agreement to join the partnership, called Gulf Cellular Associates. Since there are only two Federal Communications Commission licenses available for the Gulf of Mexico, if the FCC approves the new structure of the partnership, it is likely Gulf Cellular will be awarded a license, according to company officials.

“Together, these partners bring strong financial backing, communications experience and local market understanding to the challenge of providing advance communications services to the extensive offshore community operating in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Richard Chamberlin, general manager of Fluor Telecommunications Services in Irvine.

Chamberlin declined to say what the cellular telephone contract would be worth to Fluor, if the partnership receives a license to build it. However, a spokesman for NewVector said the cellular service project is a “multimillion-dollar” endeavor.

If it receives a FCC license, the partnership would design a system to provide telecommunications services to the offshore drilling industry and marine traffic. The 60,000-square-mile area extends about 150 miles out to sea from south of New Orleans, to south of Corpus Christi, Texas. Gulf Star is composed of Kansas City Southern Industries, a holding company based in Kansas City, Radiofone Inc. of New Orleans, and Millicom Inc., a New York-based radio communications company. NewVector is a subsidiary of US West, a telephone company created following the break-up of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.