Miguel Angel Gomez. General Manager of Fluor in Spain

When did you start operating in Spain?
Fluor Corporation started operating in our country in 1989, undertaking the development of DuPont’s Industrial Complex in Asturias from its inception. A few years later we had permanent offices in Asturias and in 2002 we started operating in Madrid, and established our Headquarters in this city; later, in 2009 and within the context of our growth and expansion strategy, we acquired EIA (Europea de Ingeniería y Asesoramiento), based in Tarragona. Currently, Fluor S.A.’s headcount exceeds 500 employees, mostly higher-degree engineers distributed throughout our three offices, construction sites - acting as construction supervisors - and certain industrial facilities belonging to our Clients, overseeing maintenance activities.

What are your main business units?
Fluor Corporation is structured around four business lines:
- Energy and Chemistry, which encompasses both Upstream and Downstream oil and gas related projects
- Power Generation, including coal, oil, nuclear and renewable energies.
- Global services. Encompassing the Operation and Maintenance of industrial facilities, plant engineering, and the provision of support to the three mentioned business lines.
- United States Government.

As regards activities in Spain, which started with the DuPont chemical project, they have been expanded to include other fields, such as oil refining, gas, power generation, the pharmaceutical industry, mining, etc. and lately renewable energies, collaborating and competing with leading companies on a global scale.

Also, leveraging our corporate experience, we have developed another business line in Spain focusing on the improvement of safety during the construction and assembly of industrial facilities, aimed at reducing accident rates; this program has been extremely well received by large refining companies such as Repsol, Cepsa and BP, whose respective accident rates have improved substantially after the implementation of said program, as compared to mean figures for the industry in Spain.

What services do you offer?
Our activity portfolio includes the execution of engineering services for any type of project, and the procurement of the corresponding equipment and materials, as well as the construction and maintenance of industrial facilities and complexes; also, within the same context, any supplementary activity, such as project management, safety and health consultancy, procurement of official permits, etc.

Have you found any difficulties in your implementation in Spain, and what parameters have enabled you to become industry leaders?
We have to admit that, just as would happen to any other foreign company, at the time of settling in Spain, the main issues we had to face were the language, and the idiosyncrasy and cultural differences in the approach to work in Spain; but having overcome these difficulties, and adjusted to the “Spanish way of doing things”, we are very proud of the level of trust that customers have placed on Fluor, S.A. over the course of these 22 years. In fact, in combination with the geographic growth and service and client diversification strategy, it has allowed us, just as in the rest of the world, to become one of the local leaders in the Engineering field. On the other hand, we have to emphasize the need to stick to our Corporation’s principles: we are a Company that aims to establish long-term relationships with its clients, and which therefore strives to achieve excellence in the provision of its services, trying to find innovative solutions to meet their needs, always in compliance with strict ethical principles.

What are some of the most relevant projects in which you have engaged?
We are currently completing one of the largest industrial projects ever in Spain - the Enlargement of Repsol’s Oil Refinery in Cartagena - with a budget of 3.2 billion Euros. Fluor has played an active role in all steps of the project’s design and implementation process: from the conceptual and basic engineering stage, assuming responsibility over the design of a portion of the detail engineering, and over construction and assembly supervision duties, and, most importantly, implementing its “Zero Accident” On-site Program, to quite satisfactory results, which has been recognized with the National Industrial Engineering Prize 2009 granted to Fluor by the General Council of Official Industrial Engineering Schools.

Fluor S.A. has also engaged in other noteworthy initiatives within the refining and petrochemical industries, including projects for clients such as Cepsa, BP, Galp, Dow Chemical, General Electric, DuPont, etc, as well as LNG regasification projects for Enagas both in its existing plants, and the one being currently constructed at the Port of El Musel, in Gijón; other highlights include assignments in the mining, food, and pharmaceutical industries, as well as power generation, in Combined Cycle Plants, and Thermo-solar facilities.

Could you please tell me about your short-, mid- and long-term plans?
Our most immediate goal is to underpin our achievements, continuing to execute projects within defined time frame, quality, safety and budget brackets, while in the mid-term, we are working to expand our customer base, and to increase our involvement in projects outside of Spain. Our long term plans include the diversification of activities, venturing into fields that may be uncharted for Fluor, S.A., but in which the Corporation has been engaging for a long time, such as microelectronics, biotechnology, telecommunications, etc.

What are the defining characteristics that set you apart from other competitors?
I would say that there are several characteristics that set us apart: we could talk about our financial strength, yielded by our market value; our global presence and capabilities, reflected in our 42,000+ staff worldwide; the expertise built up throughout our almost 100 years of market activity, and the broad range of services we offer, which allow us to tackle over 1,000 projects every year.

Other key differentiating factors, supplementing the foregoing include our commitment to the countries and environments in which we engage, the prevailing Safety objectives that underlie in all our projects, and which encompass both the facilities themselves and our own and our customer’s workforce, and, last but not least, the environmentally friendly approach that we adopt in all our projects.
Another differentiating aspect with respect to our competitors is the innovation. Indeed, since its establishment in 1912, Fluor’s reputation is built upon the application of new procedures and techniques when taking over engineering and construction projects, first in the oil industry, and then in other industries.
All these innovative methods always take into account the strict engineering and construction safety and security standards that have characterized Fluor as one of the companies most committed to Safety.

What’s the profile of the clients that you usually work with?
Our reference portfolio is mainly based on projects executed on behalf of large multinational companies, and leading companies in the countries where we operate, in the oil, gas, power generation, mining, pharmaceutical, steel and aluminum industries, civil infrastructures, etc. We operate on a worldwide scale, and from the Spanish branch we address Spain’s domestic market, Portugal, and more recently Northern African countries. We also tackle some projects for Spanish clients in other countries, such as Italy, Ireland, Peru, Argentina, etc. We also carry out specific engineering packages for large international projects developed jointly with other Corporate offices, leveraging the advantages that current online technologies enable.

In what way has the crisis affected the industry?
Evidently, we have been directly affected by the crisis in terms of new contracts in the local market. We expect this situation to improve in the immediate future; fortunately, we are already seeing some interesting developments on a global scale, which are translating into record-breaking engineering and construction contracts in terms of figures, in specific mining and Upstream industries, both in South America and the Middle East.