Fluor Daniel Agrees to Joint Paper Mill Effort : Deal: The Irvine company and a Finnish firm will form a combined entity to provide full design capabilities to the pulp and paper industry.

Anticipating a rebound in the pulp and paper industry, Fluor Daniel Inc. said Thursday that it plans to form a joint entity with Jaakko Poyry Group of Finland, a leading international designer of pulp and paper mills.

Terms of the agreement were not announced pending its legal finalization. However, when the deal is completed, Jaakko Poyry is expected to move between 50 and 100 employees from its offices in Raleigh, N.C., and Appleton, Wis., into Fluor Daniel’s Greenville, S.C., offices.

“The pulp and paper market has been very weak, but we’re anticipating it will be turning around,” said Deborah Land, spokesperson for Fluor Corp., parent company of Fluor Daniel.

U.S. pulp and paper companies are investing an estimated $14 billion in plants and equipment for the 1992-93 period, Land said. Canadian companies are spending an estimated $9 billion for the same period, and capital spending for both countries is expected to increase in 1994. The need for improvements in older locations and environmental upgrades are driving the turnaround, she said.

The combined entity, to be called Jaakko Poyry Fluor Daniel, will provide full engineering and construction capabilities to the North American pulp and paper industry.

“Jaakko Poyry is very well known in Helsinki and outside the United States for its engineering and design in the pulp and paper market,” Land said. The company is listed in trade publications as the seventh-largest design firm in the world.