Fluor’s 3rd-Quarter Profit Up 18% : Earnings: The results are attributed to strong performance in the firm’s core engineering and construction business.

Buoyed by a strong performance in its main engineering and construction business, Fluor Corp. said Thursday that profit surged 18% for its latest fiscal quarter.

For the three months ended July 31, the Irvine-based company posted earnings of $48.3 million, or 58 cents a share. That compared to a profit of $40.8 million, or 50 cents a share, for the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the period, the company’s third quarter, was $1.96 billion, up 6% from $1.84 billion.

The report “was very much on target,” said Herb Hart, a San Francisco analyst who follows the company for S.G. Warburg Group.

The good news caused little stir on Wall Street. In New York Stock Exchange trading, Fluor’s stock closed at $53.125 a share, up 62.5 cents.

Fluor’s quarterly results were lifted by a 23% increase in operating profit at its low-sulfur coal subsidiary, A.T. Massey. The overall operating profit at Fluor’s core engineering, construction and diversified services business was up 17% from a year earlier.

Analysts also noted that Fluor’s international sales in the latest quarter represented about 50% of its overall business--the highest percentage in some time.

Les McCraw, Fluor’s chairman and chief executive officer, said that the company is continuing to strengthen its position by restructuring its operations.

For the nine months ended July 31, Fluor said, its earnings rose 18%, to $140 million, or $1.69 a share, from $118.5 million, or $1.44 a share, in the comparable period a year earlier. Nine-month revenue totaled $6.1 billion, up 8% from $5.7 billion.

Fluor Reports Healthy Quarter

Fluor Corp. posted an 18% increase in its earnings for the latest fiscal quarter. Figures in millions of dollars except data per share:

3rd qtr. 3rd qtr. Nine months Nine months 1993 1994 1993 1994 Revenue $1,844.1 $1,963.1 $5,657.1 $6,100.3 Net income (loss) 40.8 48.3 118.5 140.0 Per share (loss) $0.50 $0.58 $1.44* $1.69

* Includes a $12.6-million reversal of income tax liabilities and a $9.2-million after-tax charge.

Source: Fluor Corp.; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times