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Fluor lands design work for Sasol U.S. chemical plant

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July 15 | Mon Jul 15, 2013 12:40pm EDT

July 15 (Reuters) - Fluor Corp secured the front-end engineering and design work for a chemicals plant in Louisiana being built by South Africa's Sasol Ltd aimed at putting cheap U.S. natural gas liquids to use.

Fluor, the largest publicly traded U.S. engineering company, said on Monday it would book about $120 million for the contract, which can be a prelude to winning work for the entire project. It did not provide an estimate for the total cost of the project.

The Lake Charles ethane cracker, in what Louisiana's governor called the largest single manufacturing investment in state history, will produce ethylene to feed a nearby derivative chemicals facility that is also part of the design study.

It is one of a number of crackers considered for the Gulf Coast as companies seek to take advantage of U.S. natural gas prices that are currently only a fraction of elsewhere. Fluor is also working on large chemical project expansion for Dow Chemical Co in Texas.

Start-up for the Sasol project is forecast for 2017, with expected production of 1.5 million tons per year of ethylene.

Sasol said in December it planned for the Louisiana complex a gas-to-liquid facility that will produce 96,000 barrels per day of transportation fuel and other products.

Shares of Fluor were up 22 cents at $61.71, near a four-week high, in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

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