Fluor Daniel Announces Contracts on 2 China Jobs
Fluor Daniel Inc., the giant engineering and construction company, said Wednesday that it has been awarded two contracts in China--one for engineering work at a petrochemical plant and the other for consulting work for two pharmaceutical factories.
The deals are the first in China that Fluor has made public since the bloody political crackdown by the Chinese government in June, 1989. The firm has been involved in more than half a dozen business deals in China since then, but has not publicized them at the request of the Chinese.
Deborah Land, a spokeswoman for Irvine-based Fluor Corp., Fluor Daniel’s parent, said the company has worked on more than 50 projects in China since it began doing business there in the late 1970s.
“The awards are significant in that they will position us as an exporter in the bio-technical and pharmaceutical industries,” Land said.
For one of the projects announced Wednesday, Fluor will supply engineering and procurement services for a proposed $50-million ethylene oxide plant in northeast China. Fluor estimated the value of the contract with Jilin Chemical Industries at $24 million.
The Jilin plant, which starts construction next year, will produce 40,000 tons of ethylene oxide annually when completed in 1993, said Andy Blair, project manager of Fluor Daniel’s Canadian subsidiary, which will perform the work. The chemical is a derivative used for automotive brake fluid, antifreeze and detergent products.
Fluor also has received a contract of undisclosed value from Beijing-based China National Technical Import & Export Corp. to provide consulting services for two Chinese pharmaceutical plants planned in Shanghai and the eastern China city of Zibo.
The two plants will manufacture capsules, tablets and injectable products for intravenous purposes, said Marshall Bautz, Fluor Daniel project manager.
“What the Chinese want is to make drugs to (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) quality standard,” Bautz said. “They’re planning to sell them around the world, (but) not to the United States.”
China National is a diversified company in Beijing, with annual sales of about $4 billion, said Liang Wei Qiang, manager of China Technical Corp., the Fort Lee, N.J., unit of China National. The parent buys, sells and manufactures industrial parts and plants and is involved in both heavy and light industrial manufacturing.
