New Fluor Daniel Deal Speeds Drive Into Automotive Industry

Reflecting its push into the automotive industry, Fluor Daniel said Tuesday that it has formed a joint venture with a Detroit company to engineer and build a $200-million auto painting plant for Ford Motor Co. in Canada.

John McAleer, marketing vice president for Fluor Daniel, the Irvine-based engineering and construction arm of Fluor Corp., said that since April the company has received five contracts for auto industry projects totaling more than $1 billion.

A year ago, the company’s backlog of auto industry contracts was worth only about $100 million.

McAleer said Fluor has been able to capture this new business despite a general softness in the auto industry resulting from a weakening U.S. economy and foreign competition.

Even in slow years, he said, U.S. auto makers budget up to $9 billion a year in capital projects needed for model changeovers and manufacturing improvements.

McAleer said Fluor Daniel joined with ABB Flakt Alpha, a Detroit engineer and manufacturer of paint-processing systems, to win the contract to build the painting facility at Ford of Canada’s Oakville, Ontario, assembly plant. That plant, 25 miles west of Toronto, produces Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz models for the Canadian and U.S. markets.

Fluor Daniel will provide engineering, procurement, construction and project management on the planned 750,000-square-foot facility. Flakt Alpha will help design and build the auto painting equipment for the plant, McAleer said.

He said the joint venture will handle all aspects of the project, which is expected to employ 900 workers and be completed in early 1992.

McAleer said Fluor Daniel and Flakt Alpha plan to jointly bid for similar auto industry contracts in the future. “We are looking for other opportunities in the United States, Europe and the Far East,” he said.

Flakt Alpha, a member of the Zurich-based Asea Brown Boveri Group, provides products and services for auto painting systems in 35 countries.

Fluor Daniel also said Tuesday that it has been awarded a contract valued at about $14 million to help build an oil and gas production platform complex in the North Sea for Netherlands-based Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij B.V.

Fluor Daniel’s hydrocarbon sector will provide engineering and procurement for the project, which is expected to be completed in late 1991.