Jacobs Engineering's $8.3 Billion in Fourth-Quarter Kickoffs, Completions Span All Major Industries

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) giant Jacobs Engineering Group Incorporated (NYSE:JEC) (Dallas, Texas) has spent the past year steadily expanding through a series of acquisitions, including fellow EPC company CH2M Hill Companies Limited (Denver, Colorado) and tech firm Blue Canopy (Reston, Virginia), that have given it footholds in numerous key markets. Jacobs has a hand in $6.45 billion in project completions and $1.84 billion in project starts that are planned for the fourth quarter, according to Industrial Info's project database, with projects to be found in every industry tracked.

Coal Plant Expansion--a Modern Rarity--Leads Completions
New and expanded coal-fired plants have vanished from much of the Western world, as utilities in the U.S. and other North American and European countries continue to favor natural gas and renewables as fuel sources. But the single highest-valued project involving Jacobs is a major expansion at a coal-fired plant on the other side of the globe: Pagbilao Energy Corporation's $926.2 million coal-fired power plant in Pagbilao, Philippines.

The project involves the addition of a pulverized coal-fired boiler that will drive a 435-MW steam turbine, both from Mitsubishi, and a generator set from Westinghouse. The expansion is expected to bring capacity at the plant to 1,170 megawatts (MW). An official as Pagbilao subsidiary Aboitiz Power Corporation recently told The Manila Standard that the new plant was undergoing testing and commissioning for full commercial operations by the end of the year. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

One of the largest North American projects involving Jacobs is TPCO Enterprise Incorporated's (Houston, Texas) $400 million, second-phase seamless steel pipe rolling and finishing mill in Gregory, Texas, which is expected to wrap up in the coming weeks. The project involves constructing a 1.3 million-square-foot manufacturing facility to produce a Seamless Pipe Mill with a capacity of 550,000 tons per year of oil country tubular goods. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

In Saudi Arabia, Jacobs may soon wrap up a project on which it has worked for years: Aramco subsidiary Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Company's lube oil refinery in Yanbu. That expansion, for which Jacobs was awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract in 2011, includes three major additions: a $600 million hydrocracker and hydrogen unit, which is expected to process 23,000 barrels per day (BBL/d); a $200 million sulfur complex, which is expected to process 95,000 tons per day and include an amine regeneration and sour water stripper; a $120 million lube dewaxing and hydrofinishing unit, with a capacity of 19,000 BBL/d; and a $15 million cooling tower, as well as the $61 million conversion of a propane deasphalting unit.

The additions are designed to boost production to meet an expected growth in demand for high-quality Group II and Group III base oils, and to almost double the current production of Group I Bright Stock. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on the hydrocracker and hydrogen unit, the sulfur complex, the lube dewaxing and hydrofinishing unit, the cooling tower and the propane deasphalting unit.

Pharmaceutical, Oil-Drilling Projects Top North American Construction Starts
The Pharmaceutical & Biotech Industry hosts one of the largest U.S.-based projects for Jacobs that is set to kick off before the end of the year: Allergan plc's (NYSE:AGN) (Dublin, Ireland) $200 million expansion medical product-manufacturing plant in Waco, Texas. Allergan expects to nearly double the size of the existing facility to increase production of ophthalmic and dermatological products, including ointments, gels, emulsions and solutions. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

One of the largest projects involving Jacobs in Canada is Athabasca Oil Sands Corporation's (TSX:ATH) (Calgary, Alberta) $120 million debottlenecking of the Hangingstone bitumen processing plant near Fort McMurray, Alberta, which is part of a broader, multi-phase expansion that would bring the site's capacity to 82,000 BBL/d, utilizing Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) technology. The debottlenecking would focus on the inlet & separation sections to reduce back pressure. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

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