New Lubbock-Area Wind Farm Planned

Green energy plans also include Hillwood Development’s renewable energy efforts.

GE Unit Invests In Texas Wind Project with Invenergy

Houston-based GE Energy Financial Services is investing in the McAdoo wind farm in Dickens County east of Lubbock along with Chicago-based Invenergy. The McAdoo  project will employ 100 GE 1.5-MW wind turbines. The project is expected to come online in the third quarter.

Hillwood Buys Renewable Energy, Earns ‘Green Power’ Status Dallas-based Hillwood signed a 100% renewable energy contract for its properties in North Texas and has received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s status as a “Green Power Partner.”

Dallas-based Current Energy negotiated the renewable energy contract with TXU Energy on behalf of Hillwood.

Hillwood now ranks as the second largest real estate purchaser in the United States, and the largest real estate purchaser in Texas, among companies dedicated to using renewable energy, according to the EPA.

Since February, TXU Energy has provided 100% renewable power to Hillwood’s largest North Texas properties. These include AllianceTexas, a 17,000-acre development 15 mi northwest of DFW International Airport, and Victory Park, a 75-acre development near downtown Dallas.

Fluor Wins Port Arthur Project, Reaches Milestone on DOE Project

Irving-based Fluor Corp. was awarded a $1.9 billion contract for engineering, procurement and construction for Total’s Port Arthur refinery. Fluor’s scope of work includes building a coker, a desulfurization unit, a vacuum distillation unit and other related infrastructure.

The new contract follows the completion of the front-end engineering and design work that Fluor has performed for Total - with U.S. headquarters in Jersey City, N.J. - at the Port Arthur refinery. Fluor will perform a portion of the work as self-perform construction and will also maintain the role of overall construction management.

Fluor Hanford, a prime contractor at the nuclear cleanup site in Washington State, and the Department of Energy reached two milestones by finishing consolidation and removal of radioactive sludge from the floors of the two K Basins, and finished draining one million gallons from the K East Basin. Hanford’s K Basins, which sit just 400 yds from the Columbia River, were used to store 80% of the Department of Energy’s spent nuclear fuel left over from processing plutonium during the Cold War. Fluor Hanford finished removing the 2,300 tons of spent fuel from the Basins in 2004.

Army Corps Awards $100 Million in Construction Contracts

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, awarded an $89.9 million contract to build two Medical Instructional Facility buildings to San Antonio-based URS Corp.

The facilities will be used to train technologists in radiology, pharmacy, biomedical equipment and dental technicians as well as nuclear medicine technologists.

The MIF buildings are components of the Medical Education and Training Campus being built on San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston, where enlisted medical training programs of all branches of the U.S. military will ultimately be consolidated.

The MIF buildings are part of the 1.2 million sq ft of instructional and laboratory space that is planned for the METC complex. With an average daily student enrollment of more than 9,000, METC will be one of the largest medical education and training institutions in the world.

The other contracts awarded by the Corps of Engineers will enhance additional elements of METC. General Dynamics Information Technology of Fairfax, Va., received a $6.2 million contract to build a 1,200-sq-ft voice and data communications substation.

Construction work is scheduled to take place across San Antonio at Fort Sam Houston, Camp Bullis, Lackland and Randolph Air Force Bases through September 2011. The total cost of the San Antonio BRAC Program and related military construction is projected to exceed $2 billion. In all, the San Antonio BRAC Program will involve building and renovating 78 major facilities that amount to more than 6 million sq ft of space.

CB&I Awarded $85 Million in Contracts for International Projects

CB&I of The Woodlands was awarded a contract for approximately $45 million by Suncor Energy Services Inc. - based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada - to design and build storage tanks at Suncor’s Firebag in-situ oil sands operations, near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. CB&I’s scope of work includes the engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction of numerous tanks. The project was awarded in the first quarter and is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

CB&I was also awarded a contract for approximately $40 million for several large water storage tanks to be built at an independent water and power plant project in the Middle East. The project is scheduled to be completed in early 2010.

Texas Sterling Construction Starts Drain Improvement Project

Work started recently on the $11.5 million Holcombe Street Storm Drain Improvement project in Houston.

Houston-based Texas Sterling Construction is the general contractor and the design engineer is Houston-based Costello Inc.

The majority of the project’s work will be performed at night to reduce impact on traffic and rail service.

KBR Completes Iraqi Oil Facilities, Awarded Woodside Project

Houston-based KBR completed construction on facilities for the Coalition Forces on the Iraqi Oil Transfer Platforms in the Persian Gulf. The project was a task order under KBR’s Contingency Construction Capabilities contract with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command.

KBR’s “Eos” joint venture with Worley Parsons of Houston was awarded contract options for the detailed engineering and procurement management services for Woodside’s North Rankin 2 project. The Eos Joint Venture has completed Front-End Engineering Design for the North Rankin B platform and the North West Shelf Venture participants have recently announced final approval of the complete NR2 project. The combined revenue of the FEED and contract options for the Eos Joint Venture is approximately $320 million.