Shares of Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp. rose nearly 6% Wednesday on speculation that it might gain possible engineering and construction work to rebuild parts of the Gulf Coast shoreline in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Fluor stock rose $3.34 to $61.91 on Wednesday.
In July, Fluor said it won a contract from Southern Co.’s electric utility Alabama Power Co. to provide maintenance support for major repair work at a Mobile, Ala.-based power plant.
Alabama Power, which has 1.3 million customers in the state, said Katrina turned out to be the one of the worst storms in the company’s history.
Katrina knocked down poles and some high-voltage transmission lines in the region, leaving 636,891 Alabama Power customers without electricity at the peak outage, the second-highest number ever seen.
Other companies in the engineering and construction group, including Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., Washington Group International Inc. and Foster Wheeler Ltd., also saw similar stock gains.
Shares of the Shaw Group Inc., an engineering and construction company based in Baton Rouge, La., that is already advertising for workers to help its rebuilding projects, rose $2.79 to $20.84.
A Fluor spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
