Fluor Corporation is an American multinational engineering and construction firm , headquartered in Irving, Texas . It is a holding company that provides services through its subsidiaries in three main areas: oil and gas, industrial and infrastructure, government and power. It is the largest publicly traded engineering and construction company in the Fortune 500 rankings and is listed as 265th overall.
164-609: Fluor was founded in 1912 by John Simon Fluor as Fluor Construction Company. It grew quickly, predominantly by building oil refineries, pipelines, and other facilities for the oil and gas industry, at first in California, and then in the Middle East and globally. In the late 1960s, it began diversifying into oil drilling, coal mining and other raw materials like lead. A global recession in the oil and gas industry and losses from its mining operation led to restructuring and layoffs in
328-557: A German atomic bomb project would develop one first, especially among scientists who were refugees from Nazi Germany and other fascist countries. In August 1939, Hungarian-born physicists Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner drafted the Einstein–Szilard letter , which warned of the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type". It urged the United States to acquire stockpiles of uranium ore and accelerate
492-755: A neutron moderator . The S-1 Committee recommended pursuing all five technologies. This was approved by Bush, Conant, and Brigadier General Wilhelm D. Styer , who had been designated the Army's representative on nuclear matters. Bush and Conant then took the recommendation to the Top Policy Group with a budget proposal for $ 54 million for construction by the United States Army Corps of Engineers , $ 31 million for research and development by OSRD and $ 5 million for contingencies in fiscal year 1943. They sent it on 17 June 1942, to
656-529: A ripple effect through the financial system and the economy (as well as any connected economies) as a whole. The foreign ministers of the 10 ASEAN countries believed that the well co-ordinated manipulation of their currencies was a deliberate attempt to destabilize the ASEAN economies . Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused George Soros and other currency traders of ruining Malaysia's economy with currency speculation . Soros claims to have been
820-633: A 10 percent interest in a smelter and refinery facility in Gresik, Indonesia in 1995 for $ 550 million. In 1994, it invested $ 650 million with the Beacon Group Energy Investment fund to finance energy projects. Fluor also has a majority interest in NuScale LLC., which is developing a new type of 45-megawatt nuclear reactor called a small modular reactor (SMR). Fluor's first projects were in constructing and grading roads, but by
984-619: A AAA rating whenever it was required. Nelson initially balked but quickly caved in when Groves threatened to go to the President. Groves promised not to use the AAA rating unless it was necessary. It soon transpired that for the routine requirements of the project the AAA rating was too high but the AA-3 rating was too low. After a long campaign, Groves finally received AA-1 authority on 1 July 1944. According to Groves, "In Washington you became aware of
1148-485: A buyer of the ringgit during its fall, having sold it short in 1997. At the 30th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in Subang Jaya , Malaysia , the foreign ministers issued a joint declaration on 25 July 1997 expressing serious concern and called for further intensification of ASEAN's cooperation to safeguard and promote ASEAN's interest in this regard. Coincidentally, on that same day, the central bankers of most of
1312-539: A centralized administrative staff. Fluor has trained more than 100,000 craft workers in Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Pakistan, Kuwait and other countries, where the needed labor skills weren't available locally. It may also serve clients through a joint venture with another construction firm when a local infrastructure or niche expertise is needed. Fluor acquired shares of Genentech Inc. in 1981, and it bought
1476-522: A decrease in overseas business. Additionally, it suffered losses from an over-budget power plant project in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia. Fluor was a sub-contractor to General Electric for the project. Fluor's subsidiaries sued GE alleging that it misrepresented the complexity of the project. Though revenues declined further the following year, profits were increasing. In 1999, nearly 5,000 workers were laid off from Fluor Daniel and 15 offices were closed. Fluor Daniel
1640-511: A difficult restructuring. The company sold $ 750 million in assets, including Fluor's headquarters in Irvine, in order to pay $ 1 billion in debt. Staff were reduced from 32,000 to 14,000. In 1986 Fluor sold all of its oil assets and some of its gold mining operations. Fluor Engineers, Inc. and Daniel International were merged, forming Fluor Daniel. By 1987, Fluor had returned to profitability with $ 26.6 million in profits and $ 108.5 million by 1989. By
1804-716: A fission bomb was theoretically possible. The properties of pure uranium-235 were relatively unknown, as were those of plutonium, which had only been isolated by Glenn Seaborg and his team in February 1941. The scientists at the July 1942 conference envisioned creating plutonium in nuclear reactors where uranium-238 atoms absorbed neutrons that had been emitted from fissioning uranium-235. At this point no reactor had been built, and only tiny quantities of plutonium were available from cyclotrons . Even by December 1943, only two milligrams had been produced. There were many ways of arranging
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#17327836589191968-579: A further decline in South Korean shares since stock markets were already bearish in November. The Seoul stock exchange fell by 4% on 7 November 1997. On 8 November, it plunged by 7%, its biggest one-day drop to that date. And on 24 November, stocks fell a further 7.2% on fears that the IMF would demand tough reforms. In 1998, Hyundai Motor Company took over Kia Motors. Samsung Motors ' $ 5 billion venture
2132-504: A general loss of demand and confidence throughout the region. Although most of the governments of Asia had seemingly sound fiscal policies , the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in to initiate a $ 40 billion program to stabilize the currencies of South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, economies particularly hard hit by the crisis. However, the efforts to stem a global economic crisis did little to stabilize
2296-508: A greater devaluation? This is a relevant tradeoff, but there can be no question that the degree of devaluation in the Asian countries is excessive, both from the viewpoint of the individual countries, and from the viewpoint of the international system. Looking first to the individual country, companies with substantial foreign currency debts, as so many companies in these countries have, stood to suffer far more from… currency (depreciation) than from
2460-425: A high rate of return . As a result, the region's economies received a large inflow of money and experienced a dramatic run-up in asset prices. At the same time, the regional economies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea experienced high growth rates, of 8–12% GDP, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This achievement was widely acclaimed by financial institutions including IMF and World Bank , and
2624-511: A highly leveraged economic climate, and pushed up asset prices to an unsustainable level, particularly those in non-productive sectors of the economy such as real-estate. These asset prices eventually began to collapse, causing individuals and companies to default on debt obligations. The resulting panic among lenders led to a large withdrawal of credit from the crisis countries, causing a credit crunch and further bankruptcies. In addition, as foreign investors attempted to withdraw their money,
2788-407: A large number of Indonesian corporations had been borrowing in U.S. dollars. This practice had worked well for these corporations during the preceding years, as the rupiah had strengthened respective to the dollar; their effective levels of debt and financing costs had decreased as the local currency's value rose. In July 1997, when Thailand floated the baht, Indonesia's monetary authorities widened
2952-462: A largely uncontrolled manner to certain people only – not necessarily the best suited or most efficient, but those closest to the centers of power. Weak corporate governance also led to inefficient investment and declining profitability. Until 1999, Asia attracted almost half of the total capital inflow into developing countries . The economies of Southeast Asia in particular maintained high interest rates attractive to foreign investors looking for
3116-884: A liaison office in Washington, D.C., but established his temporary headquarters at 270 Broadway in New York, where he could draw on administrative support from the Corps of Engineers' North Atlantic Division . It was close to the Manhattan office of Stone & Webster , the principal project contractor, and to Columbia University. He had permission to draw on his former command, the Syracuse District, for staff, and he started with Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Nichols , who became his deputy. Because most of his task involved construction, Marshall worked in cooperation with
3280-486: A meeting called by Stimson, which established a Military Policy Committee, responsible to the Top Policy Group, consisting of Bush (with Conant as an alternate), Styer and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell . Tolman and Conant were later appointed as Groves' scientific advisers. On 19 September, Groves went to Donald Nelson , the chairman of the War Production Board, and asked for broad authority to issue
3444-578: A plant, much less four of them for $ 90 million." A single TNT plant that Nichols had recently built in Pennsylvania had cost $ 128 million. Nor were they impressed with estimates to the nearest order of magnitude, which Groves compared with telling a caterer to prepare for between ten and a thousand guests. A survey team from Stone & Webster had already scouted a site for the production plants. The War Production Board recommended sites around Knoxville, Tennessee , an isolated area where
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#17327836589193608-504: A possible source of bombs with a destructiveness vastly greater than anything now known." In February 1940, the U.S. Navy awarded Columbia University $ 6,000, most of which Fermi and Szilard spent on graphite . A team of Columbia professors including Fermi, Szilard, Eugene T. Booth and John Dunning created the first nuclear fission reaction in the Americas, verifying the work of Hahn and Strassmann. The same team subsequently built
3772-480: A ranch. On 16 November 1942, Oppenheimer, Groves, Dudley and others toured the vicinity of the Los Alamos Ranch School . Oppenheimer expressed a strong preference for the site, citing its natural beauty, which, it was hoped, would inspire those working on the project. The engineers were concerned about the poor access road, and whether the water supply would be adequate, but otherwise felt that it
3936-469: A reaction becomes self-sustaining became known as "going critical". Compton reported the success to Conant in Washington, D.C., by a coded phone call, saying, "The Italian navigator [Fermi] has just landed in the new world." In January 1943, Grafton's successor, Major Arthur V. Peterson , ordered Chicago Pile-1 dismantled and reassembled at the Argonne Forest site, as he regarded the operation of
4100-619: A reactor as too hazardous for a densely populated area. The new site, still operated by the Metallurgical Laboratory, became known as ' Site A '. Chicago Pile-3 , the first heavy water reactor, also went critical at this site, on 15 May 1944. After the war, operations at Site A were moved about 6 miles (9.7 km) to DuPage County , the current location of the Argonne National Laboratory . By December 1942 there were concerns that even Oak Ridge
4264-473: A result of the crisis. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, income in the northeast, the poorest part of the country, rose by 46 percent from 1998 to 2006. Nationwide poverty fell from 21.3 to 11.3 percent. Thailand's Gini coefficient , a measure of income inequality , fell from .525 in 2000 to .499 in 2004 (it had risen from 1996 to 2000) versus 1997 Asian financial crisis. By 2001, Thailand's economy had recovered. The increasing tax revenues allowed
4428-556: A result of the crisis. In May 1997, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas , the country's central bank, raised interest rates by 1.75 percentage points and again by 2 points on 19 June. Thailand triggered the crisis on 2 July and on 3 July, the Bangko Sentral intervened to defend the peso , raising the overnight rate from 15% to 32% at the onset of the Asian crisis in mid-July 1997. The peso dropped from 26 pesos per dollar at
4592-483: A series of bailouts ("rescue packages") for the most-affected economies to enable them to avoid default , tying the packages to currency, banking and financial system reforms. Due to IMF's involvement in the financial crisis, the term IMF Crisis became a way to refer to the Asian Financial Crisis in countries that were affected. The IMF's support was conditional on a series of economic reforms,
4756-684: A series of prototype nuclear reactors (or "piles" as Fermi called them) in Pupin Hall at Columbia but were not yet able to achieve a chain reaction. The Advisory Committee on Uranium became the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) on Uranium when that organization was formed on 27 June 1940. On 28 June 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8807, which created the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), under director Vannevar Bush . The office
4920-592: A special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and his resignation from the Trust in 1947, Groves deposited a total of $ 37.5 million. Groves appreciated the early British atomic research and the British scientists' contributions to the Manhattan Project but stated that the United States would have succeeded without them, although not in time for
5084-494: A temporary rise in domestic interest rates…. Thus, on macroeconomics… monetary policy has to be kept tight to restore confidence in the currency.... From the then IMF managing director Michel Camdessus : To reverse (currency depreciation), countries have to make it more attractive to hold domestic currency, and that means temporarily raising interest rates, even if this (hurts) weak banks and corporations. From 1985 to 1996, Thailand's economy grew at an average of over 9% per year,
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5248-968: A valve rated for 1,975 pounds per square inch (psi) was being used where a valve rated at 2,235 psi was needed. Fluor built the Aladdin Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in 2001 for $ 1.4 billion. In 2004, the company was awarded a $ 1.1 billion project with AMEC to help rebuild the water, power and civic infrastructure of Iraq after the Iraq War . Fluor has also built a rail line in Europe and missile sites in California and possibly Arizona. The company provided disaster recovery services in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina . In 2010 Fluor provided workers to clean up oil tar on beaches in Florida and Alabama after
5412-479: Is likely to be started." In Serber's account, Oppenheimer mentioned the possibility of this scenario to Arthur Compton , who "didn't have enough sense to shut up about it. It somehow got into a document that went to Washington" and was "never laid to rest". The Chief of Engineers , Major General Eugene Reybold , selected Colonel James C. Marshall to head the Army's part of the project in June 1942. Marshall created
5576-627: The Deepwater Horizon oil spill . In December 2012, Fluor was awarded a $ 3.14 billion contract to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River. Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons . It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946,
5740-777: The Belgian Government in Exile was in London. Britain agreed to give the United States most of the Belgian ore, as it could not use most of the supply without restricted American research. In 1944, the Trust purchased 3,440,000 pounds (1,560,000 kg) of uranium oxide ore from companies operating mines in the Belgian Congo. To avoid briefing US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. ,
5904-657: The Carnegie Institution of Washington and later the Naval Research Laboratory . Murphree also headed an unsuccessful separation project using gas centrifuges . Meanwhile, there were two lines of investigation into nuclear reactor technology : Harold Urey researched heavy water at Columbia, while Arthur Compton organized the Metallurgical Laboratory in early 1942 to study plutonium and reactors using graphite as
6068-534: The Chief of Staff of the Army , General George C. Marshall . Roosevelt chose the Army to run the project rather than the Navy, because the Army had more experience with managing large-scale construction. He agreed to coordinate the effort with the British and on 11 October sent a message to Prime Minister Winston Churchill , suggesting that they correspond on atomic matters. The S-1 Committee meeting on 18 December 1941
6232-576: The Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) in early 1943. While Stone & Webster concentrated on the production facilities, the architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill developed a residential community for 13,000. The community was located on the slopes of Black Oak Ridge, from which the new town of Oak Ridge got its name. The Army presence at Oak Ridge increased in August 1943 when Nichols replaced Marshall as head of
6396-726: The Iraq War , recovering from Hurricane Katrina and building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System . Fluor Corporation's predecessor, Rudolph Fluor & Brother, was founded in 1890 by John Simon Fluor and his two brothers in Oshkosh, Wisconsin as a saw and paper mill. John Fluor acted as its president and contributed $ 100 in personal savings to help the business get started. The company was renamed Fluor Bros. Construction Co. in 1903. In 1912 John Fluor moved to Santa Ana, California for health reasons without his brothers and founded Fluor Corporation out of his garage under
6560-533: The Jakarta Stock Exchange touched a historic low in September. Moody's eventually downgraded Indonesia's long-term debt to " junk bond ". Although the rupiah crisis began in July and August 1997, it intensified in November when the effects of that summer devaluation showed up on corporate balance sheets. Companies that had borrowed in dollars had to face the higher costs imposed upon them by
6724-615: The Latin American debt crisis . The effects of the SAPs were mixed and their impact controversial. Critics, however, noted the contractionary nature of these policies, arguing that in a recession , the traditional Keynesian response was to increase government spending, prop up major companies, and lower interest rates. The reasoning was that by stimulating the economy and staving off recession , governments could restore confidence while preventing economic loss . They pointed out that
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6888-605: The Tennessee Valley Authority could supply ample electric power and the rivers could provide cooling water for the reactors. After examining several sites, the survey team selected one near Elza, Tennessee . Conant advised that it be acquired at once and Styer agreed but Marshall temporized, awaiting the results of Conant's reactor experiments. Of the prospective processes, only Lawrence's electromagnetic separation appeared sufficiently advanced for construction to commence. Marshall and Nichols began assembling
7052-484: The University of Birmingham had made a breakthrough investigating the critical mass of uranium-235 in June 1939. Their calculations indicated that it was within an order of magnitude of 10 kilograms (22 lb), small enough to be carried by contemporary bombers. Their March 1940 Frisch–Peierls memorandum initiated the British atomic bomb project and its MAUD Committee , which unanimously recommended pursuing
7216-832: The X-10 Graphite Reactor and the production reactors at the Hanford Site , in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium. The Fat Man plutonium implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and development effort by the Los Alamos Laboratory. The project was also charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear weapon project . Through Operation Alsos , Manhattan Project personnel served in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they gathered nuclear materials and documents, and rounded up German scientists. Despite
7380-428: The exchange market was flooded with the currencies of the crisis countries, putting depreciative pressure on their exchange rates. To prevent currency values collapsing, these countries' governments raised domestic interest rates to exceedingly high levels (to help diminish flight of capital by making lending more attractive to investors) and intervened in the exchange market, buying up any excess domestic currency at
7544-574: The fissile material . Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the US, the UK, and Canada. The project resulted in two types of atomic bombs, developed concurrently during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon . The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium , so a simpler gun-type design called Little Boy
7708-455: The fixed exchange rate with foreign reserves . Neither of these policy responses could be sustained for long, as several countries had insufficient levels of foreign exchange reserves. Very high interest rates, which can be extremely damaging to a healthy economy, wreaked further havoc on economies in an already fragile state, while the central banks were hemorrhaging foreign reserves, of which they had finite amounts. When it became clear that
7872-472: The " structural adjustment package" (SAP). The SAPs called on crisis-struck nations to reduce government spending and deficits, allow insolvent banks and financial institutions to fail, and aggressively raise interest rates. The reasoning was that these steps would restore confidence in the nations' fiscal solvency , penalize insolvent companies, and protect currency values. Above all, it was stipulated that IMF-funded capital had to be administered rationally in
8036-432: The "General Agreement to Borrow" and the "Emergency Finance Mechanism". The scope and the severity of the collapses led to an urgent need for outside intervention. Since the countries melting down were among the richest in their region, and in the world, and since hundreds of billions of dollars were at stake, any response to the crisis was likely to be cooperative and international. The International Monetary Fund created
8200-631: The 1920s it was known for building public facilities, industrial complexes and serving a growing California oil and gas industry. It started building office and meter manufacturing facilities for the Southern California Gas Company in 1915, as well as a compressor station for the Industrial Fuel Supply Company in 1919. Fluor built the first "Buddha Tower" in 1921 in Signal Hill, California, for
8364-661: The 1970s. Fluor acquired a construction company, Pike Corp. of America and the engineering division of its prior partner in Australia, Utah Construction. In 1972, Fluor bought land in Irvine, California and started building its new headquarters on it. The following year, the company's oil and gas operations were consolidated under a new entity, Fluor Oil and Gas Corp. In 1977, Fluor acquired Daniel International Corporation. Fluor's business had become predominantly international, while Daniel International's $ 1 billion construction business
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#17327836589198528-470: The 1980s. Fluor sold its oil operations and diversified its construction work into a broader range of services and industries. In the 1990s, Fluor introduced new services like equipment rentals and staffing. Nuclear waste cleanup projects and other environmental work became a significant portion of Fluor's revenues. The company also did projects related to the Manhattan Project , rebuilding after
8692-472: The 1990s after the implementation of a number of export-oriented reforms. Other economists dispute China's impact, noting that both ASEAN and China experienced simultaneous rapid export growth in the early 1990s. Many economists believe that the Asian crisis was created not by market psychology or technology, but by policies that distorted incentives within the lender–borrower relationship. The resulting large quantities of credit that became available generated
8856-498: The 1990s, hot money flew into the Southeast Asia region through financial hubs , especially Hong Kong. The investors were often ignorant of the actual fundamentals or risk profiles of the respective economies, and once the crisis gripped the region, the political uncertainty regarding the future of Hong Kong as an Asian financial centre led some investors to withdraw from Asia altogether. This shrink in investments only worsened
9020-712: The Army allowed the crops to be harvested, but this was not always possible. The land acquisition process dragged on and was not completed before the end of the Manhattan Project in December 1946. The dispute did not delay work. Although progress on the reactor design at Metallurgical Laboratory and DuPont was not sufficiently advanced to accurately predict the scope of the project, a start was made in April 1943 on facilities for an estimated 25,000 workers, half of whom were expected to live on-site. By July 1944, some 1,200 buildings had been erected and nearly 51,000 people were living in
9184-690: The Army's component the Manhattan District; Reybold officially created this district on 13 August. Informally, it was known as the Manhattan Engineer District, or MED. Unlike other districts, it had no geographic boundaries, and Marshall had the authority of a division engineer. Development of Substitute Materials remained as the official codename of the project as a whole but was supplanted over time by "Manhattan". Marshall later conceded that, "I had never heard of atomic fission but I did know that you could not build much of
9348-561: The August 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. The British wartime participation was crucial to the success of the United Kingdom's independent nuclear weapons program after the war when the McMahon Act of 1946 temporarily ended American nuclear cooperation. The day after he took over the project, Groves went to Tennessee with Colonel Marshall to inspect the proposed site there, and Groves was impressed. On 29 September 1942, United States Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson authorized
9512-757: The Australian physicist Mark Oliphant , flew to the US in late August 1941 and discovered that data provided by the MAUD Committee had not reached key American physicists. Oliphant set out to find out why the committee's findings were apparently being ignored. He met with the Uranium Committee and visited Berkeley, California , where he spoke persuasively to Ernest O. Lawrence . Lawrence was sufficiently impressed to commence his own research into uranium. He in turn spoke to James B. Conant , Arthur H. Compton and George B. Pegram . Oliphant's mission
9676-609: The Corps of Engineers to acquire 56,000 acres (23,000 ha) of land by eminent domain at a cost of $ 3.5 million. An additional 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) was subsequently acquired. About 1,000 families were affected by the order, which came into effect on 7 October. Protests, legal appeals, and a 1943 Congressional inquiry were to no avail. By mid-November U.S. Marshals were posting notices to vacate on farmhouse doors, and construction contractors were moving in. Some families were given two weeks' notice to vacate farms that had been their homes for generations. The ultimate cost of
9840-416: The Econamine lineup of carbon capture products. Fluor's work includes designing and building power plants, petrochemical factories, mining facilities, roads and bridges, government buildings, and manufacturing facilities. The company also performs nuclear cleanup, and other services. Separate teams of experts, procurement staff, project managers and workers are provided for large projects that are supported by
10004-489: The IMF, the reserves of Thailand and South Korea were perilously low, and the Indonesian Rupiah was excessively depreciated. Thus, the first order of business was... to restore confidence in the currency. To achieve this, countries have to make it more attractive to hold domestic currency, which in turn, requires increasing interest rates temporarily, even if higher interest costs complicate the situation of weak banks and corporations... Why not operate with lower interest rates and
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#173278365891910168-487: The Industrial Fuel Supply Company. The Buddha Tower was a design of water-cooling tower named after the Buddha temples they resemble. The following year Fluor was awarded a contract by Richfield Oil to build a 10,000-gallon-per-day gasoline plant. Against his father's wishes, Peter Fluor expanded Fluor's business outside of California in the 1930s. It built refineries in Texas, as well as oil pipelines and compressor stations from Panhandle, Texas, to Indianapolis, Indiana, for
10332-531: The Manhattan Engineer District. One of his first tasks was to move the district headquarters to Oak Ridge, although the name of the district did not change. In September 1943 the administration of community facilities was outsourced to Turner Construction Company through a subsidiary, the Roane-Anderson Company. Chemical engineers were part of "frantic efforts" to make 10% to 12% enriched uranium 235, with tight security and fast approvals for supplies and materials. The population of Oak Ridge soon expanded well beyond
10496-671: The Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads , developed new weapons, promoted the development of the network of national laboratories , supported medical research into radiology and laid the foundations for the nuclear navy . It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in January 1947. The discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938, and its theoretical explanation by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch , made an atomic bomb theoretically possible. There were fears that
10660-411: The Manhattan Project's emphasis on security, Soviet atomic spies penetrated the program. The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb during the Trinity test , conducted at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used a month later in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , respectively. In the immediate postwar years,
10824-407: The Massey Coal Co. business, because it had large reserves of low-sulfur coal. In 1992, Fluor sold its ownership of Doe Run Company, the world's largest producer of refined lead, which was losing money at the time due to declining lead prices. By 1993, Fluor had revenues of $ 4.17 billion and 22,000 staff. In 1997, Fluor's revenues fell almost 50 percent, in part due to the Asian financial crisis and
10988-403: The Metallurgical Laboratory, was assigned to assist Oppenheimer by coordinating experimental physics groups scattered across the country. Oppenheimer and Robert Serber of the University of Illinois examined the problems of neutron diffusion—how neutrons moved in a nuclear chain reaction—and hydrodynamics —how the explosion produced by a chain reaction might behave. To review this work and
11152-435: The Middle East. In the 1960s and 1970s, Fluor built the first all-hydrogen refinery in Kuwait and the first exclusively offshore power plant for the Atlantic Richfield Company . It also constructed pumps and ports for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System , which traversed 800 miles from northern Alaska to Valdez, Alaska , and the world's largest offshore facility for natural gas on the island of Java in Indonesia . In 1976, it
11316-418: The Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company. Fluor constructed the Escondida in Chile, which is the second-largest copper mine in the world. In 1942, Fluor constructed cooling towers and other facilities in Hanford, Washington, for the Manhattan Project . It built an expansion of the Dhahran Airfield in Saudi Arabia for the United States Army in the 1950s and accepted its first international project for ARAMCO in
11480-440: The Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI), whereby companies agree to a set of ethics principles. A MarketLine SWOT analysis said Fluor's environmental work "enhances the company's brand image," while often lengthy and unpredictable legal disputes "tarnish the company's brand image and will erode customer confidence." It started the Fluor Foundation for its charitable work in 1952 and Fluor Cares in 2010. The company started
11644-503: The Philippines dropped to virtually zero. Only Singapore proved relatively insulated from the shock, but nevertheless suffered serious hits in passing, mainly due to its status as a major financial hub and its geographical proximity to Malaysia and Indonesia. By 1999, however, analysts saw signs that the economies of Asia were beginning to recover. After the crisis, economies in East and Southeast Asia worked together toward financial stability and better financial supervision. The causes of
11808-470: The President, who approved it by writing "OK FDR" on the document. Compton asked theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer of the University of California to take over research into fast neutron calculations —key to calculations of critical mass and weapon detonation—from Gregory Breit , who had quit on 18 May 1942 because of concerns over lax operational security. John H. Manley , a physicist at
11972-726: The Quebec Agreement, the Americans' progress and expenditures amazed the British. Chadwick pressed for British involvement in the Manhattan Project to the fullest extent and abandoned hopes of an independent British project during the war. With Churchill's backing, he attempted to ensure that every request from Groves for assistance was honored. The British Mission that arrived in the United States in December 1943 included Niels Bohr , Otto Frisch, Klaus Fuchs , Rudolf Peierls, and Ernest Titterton . More scientists arrived in early 1944. While those assigned to gaseous diffusion left by
12136-408: The U.S. government had pursued expansionary policies, such as lowering interest rates, increasing government spending, and cutting taxes, when the United States itself entered a recession in 2001, and arguably the same in the fiscal and monetary policies during the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis. Many commentators in retrospect criticized the IMF for encouraging the developing economies of Asia down
12300-595: The USD–Baht currency peg, and the Thai government was eventually forced to float the Baht, on 2 July 1997, allowing the value of the Baht to be set by the currency market. This caused a chain reaction of events, eventually culminating into a region-wide crisis. Thailand's booming economy came to a halt amid massive layoffs in finance, real estate, and construction that resulted in huge numbers of workers returning to their villages in
12464-474: The United States a more attractive investment destination relative to Southeast Asia, which had been attracting hot money flows through high short-term interest rates, and raised the value of the U.S. dollar. For the Southeast Asian nations which had currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar, the higher U.S. dollar caused their own exports to become more expensive and less competitive in the global markets. At
12628-486: The academic scientists working on the project. Groves' orders placed him directly under Somervell rather than Reybold, with Colonel Marshall now answerable to Groves. Groves established his headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the New War Department Building , where Colonel Marshall had his liaison office. He assumed command of the Manhattan Project on 23 September 1942. Later that day, he attended
12792-583: The affected countries were at the EMEAP (Executive Meeting of East Asia Pacific) meeting in Shanghai, and they failed to make the "New Arrangement to Borrow" operational. A year earlier, the finance ministers of these same countries had attended the 3rd APEC finance ministers meeting in Kyoto , Japan, on 17 March 1996, and according to that joint declaration, they had been unable to double the amounts available under
12956-705: The bomb design team at Los Alamos needed them, despite the risk of revealing weapon design secrets. In August 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt negotiated the Quebec Agreement , which established the Combined Policy Committee to coordinate the efforts of the US and UK; Canada was not a signatory, but the Agreement provided for a Canadian representative on the Combined Policy Committee in view of Canada's contribution to
13120-713: The branch office in Santa Fe, where she met new arrivals and issue them with passes. An Army-OSRD council on 25 June 1942 decided to build a pilot plant for plutonium production in the Argonne Forest preserve , southwest of Chicago. In July, Nichols arranged for a lease of 1,025 acres (415 ha) from the Cook County Forest Preserve District , and Captain James F. Grafton was appointed Chicago area engineer. It soon became apparent that
13284-401: The chain objectives of tightened money supply , discouraged currency speculation , stabilized exchange rate, curbed currency depreciation, and ultimately contained inflation . In the Asian meltdown, highest IMF officials rationalized their prescribed high interest rates as follows: From then IMF First Deputy managing director, Stanley Fischer in 1998: When their governments "approached
13448-481: The company re-incorporated as Fluor Corporation. By the 1930s, Fluor had operations in Europe, the Middle East and Australia. Business declined rapidly during the Great Depression , but picked up again during World War II . During the war Fluor manufactured synthetic rubber and was responsible for a substantial portion of high-octane gasoline production in the United States. A Gas-Gasoline division of Fluor
13612-402: The construction camp. As area engineer, Matthias exercised overall control of the site. At its peak, the construction camp was the third most populous town in Washington state. Hanford operated a fleet of over 900 buses, more than the city of Chicago. Like Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, Richland was a gated community with restricted access, but it looked more like a typical wartime American boomtown:
13776-477: The country to balance its budget and repay its debts to the IMF in 2003, four years ahead of schedule. The Thai baht continued to appreciate to 29 Baht to the U.S. dollar in October 2010. In June 1997, Indonesia seemed far from crisis. Unlike Thailand, Indonesia had low inflation, a trade surplus of more than $ 900 million, huge foreign exchange reserves of more than $ 20 billion, and a good banking sector. However,
13940-624: The country, many factors arising from all aspects, including sports broadcasting on Indonesian television, including: Additionally, the Indonesian motorcycle Grand Prix , which was held at Sentul , was dropped from the 1998 Superbike and MotoGP calendars. World Rally Championship also dropped the Rally Indonesia from their 1998 calendar . The banking sector was burdened with non-performing loans as its large corporations were funding aggressive expansions. During that time, there
14104-858: The countryside and 600,000 foreign workers being sent back to their home countries. The baht devalued swiftly and lost more than half of its value. The baht reached its lowest point of 56 units to the U.S. dollar in January 1998. The Thai stock market dropped 75%. Finance One, the largest Thai finance company until then, collapsed. On 11 August 1997, the IMF unveiled a rescue package for Thailand with more than $ 17 billion, subject to conditions such as passing laws relating to bankruptcy (reorganizing and restructuring) procedures and establishing strong regulation frameworks for banks and other financial institutions. The IMF approved on 20 August 1997, another bailout package of $ 2.9 billion. Poverty and inequality increased while employment, wages and social welfare all declined as
14268-412: The crisis spread, other Southeast Asian countries and later Japan and South Korea saw slumping currencies, devalued stock markets and other asset prices, and a precipitous rise in private debt . Foreign debt-to-GDP ratios rose from 100% to 167% in the four large Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies in 1993–96, then shot up beyond 180% during the worst of the crisis. In South Korea,
14432-482: The debacle are many and disputed. Thailand's economy developed into an economic bubble fueled by hot money . More and more was required as the size of the bubble grew. The same type of situation happened in Malaysia and Indonesia, which had the added complication of what was called " crony capitalism ". The short-term capital flow was expensive and often highly conditioned for quick profit . Development money went in
14596-471: The deuterium concentration in the water from 2.3% to 99.8%. For this process, Hugh Taylor of Princeton developed a platinum-on-carbon catalyst for the first three stages while Urey developed a nickel- chromia one for the fourth stage tower. The final cost was $ 2.8 million. The Canadian Government did not officially learn of the project until August 1942. Trail's heavy water production started in January 1944 and continued until 1956. Heavy water from Trail
14760-552: The development of an atomic bomb. In July 1940, Britain had offered to give the United States access to its research, and the Tizard Mission 's John Cockcroft briefed American scientists on British developments. He discovered that the American project was smaller than the British, and not as advanced. As part of the scientific exchange, the MAUD Committee's findings were conveyed to the United States. One of its members,
14924-585: The domestic situation in Indonesia. After 30 years in power, Indonesian President Suharto was forced to step down on 21 May 1998 in the wake of widespread rioting that followed sharp price increases caused by a drastic devaluation of the rupiah . The effects of the crisis lingered through 1998, where many important stocks fell in Wall Street as a result of a dip in the values of the currencies of Russia and Latin American countries that weakened those countries' "demand for U.S. exports." In 1998, growth in
15088-691: The economic environment. The devaluation of the Chinese renminbi and the Japanese yen , subsequent to the latter's strengthening due to the Plaza Accord of 1985, the raising of U.S. interest rates which led to a strong U.S. dollar, and the sharp decline in semiconductor prices, all adversely affected their growth. As the U.S. economy recovered from a recession in the early 1990s, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank under Alan Greenspan began to raise U.S. interest rates to head off inflation . This made
15252-482: The efficiency of the bomb as it exploded. As the idea of the fission bomb was theoretically settled—at least until more experimental data was available—Edward Teller pushed for discussion of a more powerful bomb: the "super", now usually referred to as a " hydrogen bomb ", which would use the force of a detonating fission bomb to ignite a nuclear fusion reaction in deuterium and tritium . Teller proposed scheme after scheme, but Bethe refused each one. The fusion idea
15416-503: The effort. An agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill known as the Hyde Park Aide-Mémoire , signed in late September 1944, extended the Quebec Agreement to the postwar period and suggested that "when a 'bomb' is finally available, it might perhaps, after mature consideration, be used against the Japanese, who should be warned that this bombardment will be repeated until they surrender". When cooperation resumed after
15580-786: The end of 1989 and was replaced by Leslie McCraw. During the restructuring, Fluor's core construction and engineering work was diversified into 30 industries including food, paper manufacturers, prisons and others to reduce its vulnerability to market changes in the oil and gas market. In the 1990s, the company tried to change its image, calling itself a "diversified technical services" firm. It started offering equipment rentals, staffing services, and financing for construction projects. The company began offering environmental cleanup and pollution control services, which grew to half of its new business by 1992. Fluor's mining business grew from $ 300 million in 1990 to $ 1 billion in 1994. The US government passed environmental regulations in 1995 that led to growth for
15744-418: The end of the restructuring, Fluor had three major divisions: Fluor Daniel, Fluor Construction International and St. Joe Minerals Corp. Each division had its own smaller subsidiaries. Fluor started being named by Engineering News as the largest construction and engineering company in the United States. Fluor's international revenues rebounded. Having postponed his retirement to help Fluor, Tappan stepped down at
15908-418: The entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys , and subsumed the program from the American civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development . The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$ 2 billion (equivalent to about $ 27 billion in 2023), over 80 percent of which was for building and operating the plants that produced
16072-418: The fall of 1944, the thirty-five working under Oliphant with Lawrence at Berkeley were assigned to existing laboratory groups and most stayed until the end of the war. The nineteen sent to Los Alamos also joined existing groups, primarily related to implosion and bomb assembly, but not the plutonium-related ones. The Quebec Agreement specified that nuclear weapons would not be used against another country without
16236-504: The financial conditions in Asia (subsequently leading to the depreciation of the Thai baht on 2 July 1997). Several case studies on the topic of the application of network analysis of a financial system help to explain the interconnectivity of financial markets , as well as the significance of the robustness of hubs (or main nodes). Any negative externalities in the hubs creates
16400-430: The first Canadian reactor, and the first to be completed outside the United States, when it went critical in September 1945; ZEEP remained in use by researchers until 1970. A larger 10 MW NRX reactor, which was designed during the war, was completed and went critical in July 1947. The Eldorado Mine at Port Radium was a source of uranium ore. Asian financial crisis The 1997 Asian financial crisis
16564-422: The fissile material into a critical mass. The simplest was shooting a "cylindrical plug" into a sphere of "active material" with a "tamper"—dense material to focus neutrons inward and keep the reacting mass together to increase its efficiency. They also explored designs involving spheroids , a primitive form of " implosion " suggested by Richard C. Tolman , and the possibility of autocatalytic methods to increase
16728-497: The future, with no favored parties receiving funds by preference. In at least one of the affected countries the restrictions on foreign ownership were greatly reduced. There were to be adequate government controls set up to supervise all financial activities, ones that were to be independent, in theory, of private interest. Insolvent institutions had to be closed, and insolvency itself had to be clearly defined. In addition, financial systems were to become "transparent", that is, provide
16892-560: The gas and oil industry, especially in the Middle East. By 1981, Fluor's staff had grown to 29,000 and revenue, backlog, and profits had each increased more than 30 percent over the prior year. However, by 1984 the mining operation was causing heavy losses and the oil and gas industry Fluor served was in a worldwide recession due to declining oil prices. From 1981 to 1984, Fluor's backlog went from $ 16 billion to $ 4 billion. In 1985 it reported $ 633 million in losses. David Tappan took Bob Fluor's place as CEO in 1984 after Bob died from cancer and led
17056-520: The general theory of fission reactions, Oppenheimer and Fermi convened meetings at the University of Chicago in June and at the University of California in July 1942 with theoretical physicists Hans Bethe , John Van Vleck , Edward Teller, Emil Konopinski , Robert Serber, Stan Frankel , and Eldred C. (Carlyle) Nelson, and experimental physicists Emilio Segrè , Felix Bloch , Franco Rasetti , Manley, and Edwin McMillan . They tentatively confirmed that
17220-401: The head of the Corps of Engineers Construction Division, Major General Thomas M. Robbins , and his deputy, Colonel Leslie Groves . Reybold, Somervell, and Styer decided to call the project "Development of Substitute Materials", but Groves felt that this would draw attention. Since engineer districts normally carried the name of the city where they were located, Marshall and Groves agreed to name
17384-404: The highest economic growth rate of any country at the time. Inflation was kept reasonably low within a range of 3.4–5.7%. The baht was pegged at 25 to the U.S. dollar. On 14 and 15 May 1997, the Thai baht was hit by massive speculative attacks. On 30 June 1997, Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said that he would not devalue the baht. However, Thailand lacked the foreign reserves to support
17548-411: The highest rating he could assign was AA-3, although he was willing to provide a AAA rating on request for critical materials if the need arose. Nichols and Marshall were disappointed; AA-3 was the same priority as Nichols' TNT plant in Pennsylvania. Vannevar Bush became dissatisfied with Colonel Marshall's failure to get the project moving forward expeditiously and felt that more aggressive leadership
17712-533: The importance of top priority. Most everything proposed in the Roosevelt administration would have top priority. That would last for about a week or two and then something else would get top priority". One of Groves' early problems was to find a director for Project Y , the group that would design and build the bomb. The obvious choice was one of the three laboratory heads, Urey, Lawrence, or Compton, but they could not be spared. Compton recommended Oppenheimer, who
17876-547: The industrial manufacturing area of Ontario and Quebec, and proximity to a rail head adjacent to a large military base, Camp Petawawa . Located on the Ottawa River, it had access to abundant water. The first director of the new laboratory was Hans von Halban . He was replaced by John Cockcroft in May 1944, who was succeeded by Bennett Lewis in September 1946. A pilot reactor known as ZEEP (zero-energy experimental pile) became
18040-500: The initial plans, and peaked at 75,000 in May 1945, by which time 82,000 people were employed at the Clinton Engineer Works, and 10,000 by Roane-Anderson. The idea of locating Project Y at Oak Ridge was considered, but it was decided that it should be in a remote location. On Oppenheimer's recommendation, the search for a suitable site was narrowed to the vicinity of Albuquerque, New Mexico , where Oppenheimer owned
18204-467: The international financial community. Later that year, in July, South Korea's third-largest car maker, Kia Motors , asked for emergency loans. The domino effect of collapsing large South Korean companies drove the interest rates up and international investors away. In the wake of the Asian market downturn, Moody's lowered the credit rating of South Korea from A1 to A3, on 28 November 1997, and downgraded again to B2 on 11 December. That contributed to
18368-491: The issues involved in setting up a laboratory in a remote area and should be appointed as its director. Groves personally waived the security requirements and issued Oppenheimer's clearance on 20 July 1943. The British and Americans exchanged nuclear information but did not initially combine their efforts; during 1940-41 the British project ( Tube Alloys ) was larger and more advanced. Britain rebuffed attempts by Bush and Conant in August 1941 to strengthen cooperation because it
18532-451: The kind of financial information used in the West to make financial decisions. As countries fell into crisis, many local businesses and governments that had taken out loans in US dollars, which suddenly became much more expensive relative to the local currency which formed their earned income, found themselves unable to pay their creditors. The dynamics of the situation were similar to that of
18696-535: The land acquisition, which was not completed until March 1945, was only about $ 2.6 million—around $ 47 an acre. When presented with a proclamation declaring Oak Ridge a total exclusion area that no one could enter without military permission, the Governor of Tennessee , Prentice Cooper , angrily tore it up. Initially known as the Kingston Demolition Range, the site was officially renamed
18860-442: The largest employer-sponsored apprenticeship program in California with a four-year program for designers in 1982. Fluor operates a virtual college for employees called Fluor University. Fluor is a holding company that provides services through its subsidiaries. Its subsidiaries provide engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance and project management services. The company has also developed pollution control products, such as
19024-488: The military necessity continues". Wartime land purchases eventually came to 49,383 acres (19,985 ha), but only $ 414,971 was spent. Work commenced in December 1942. Groves initially allocated $ 300,000 for construction, three times Oppenheimer's estimate, but by the time Sundt finished on 30 November 1943, over $ 7 million had been spent. During the war, Los Alamos was referred to as "Site Y" or "the Hill". Initially it
19188-551: The military profile was lower, and physical security elements like high fences and guard dogs were less evident. Canada provided research, extraction and production of uranium and plutonium, and Canadian scientists worked at Los Alamos. Cominco had produced electrolytic hydrogen at Trail, British Columbia , since 1930. Urey suggested in 1941 that it could produce heavy water. To the existing $ 10 million plant consisting of 3,215 cells consuming 75 MW of hydroelectric power, secondary electrolysis cells were added to increase
19352-516: The mutual consent of the US and UK. In June 1945, Wilson agreed that the nuclear bombing of Japan would be recorded as a decision of the Combined Policy Committee. The Combined Policy Committee created the Combined Development Trust in June 1944, with Groves as its chairman, to procure uranium and thorium ores on international markets. The Belgian Congo and Canada held much of the world's uranium outside Eastern Europe, and
19516-461: The name Fluor Construction Company. By 1924 the business had annual revenues of $ 100,000 ($ 1.56 million in 2021 dollars) and a staff of 100 employees. John Fluor delegated most of the company's operations to his sons, Peter and Simon Fluor. A $ 100,000 capital investment was made that year and it was incorporated. John's eldest son Peter served as head of sales and grew the company to $ 1.5 million ($ 20.4 million in 2013 dollars) in revenues by 1929. In 1929
19680-403: The necessary resources. The first step was to obtain a high priority rating for the project. The top ratings were AA-1 through AA-4 in descending order, although there was a special AAA rating reserved for emergencies. Ratings AA-1 and AA-2 were for essential weapons and equipment, so Colonel Lucius D. Clay , the deputy chief of staff at Services and Supply for requirements and resources, felt that
19844-443: The path of "fast-track capitalism", meaning liberalization of the financial sector (elimination of restrictions on capital flows), maintenance of high domestic interest rates to attract portfolio investment and bank capital, and pegging of the national currency to the dollar to reassure foreign investors against currency risk. The conventional high-interest-rate economic strategy is normally employed by monetary authorities to attain
20008-537: The program, 787 insolvent financial institutions were closed or merged by June 2003. The number of financial institutions in which foreign investors invested has increased rapidly. Examples include New Bridge Capital's takeover of Korea First Bank. The South Korean won , meanwhile, weakened to more than 1,700 per U.S. dollar from around 800, but later managed to recover. However, like the chaebol, South Korea's government did not escape unscathed. Its national debt -to-GDP ratio more than doubled (approximately 13% to 30%) as
20172-608: The project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers . Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District , as its first headquarters were in Manhattan ; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials , for
20336-415: The rate was almost exactly 8,000 to 1 U.S. dollar. Indonesia lost 13.5% of its GDP that year. In February 1998, President Suharto sacked the incumbent Bank Indonesia governor, J. Soedradjad Djiwandono , but this proved insufficient. Amidst widespread rioting in May 1998 , Suharto resigned under public pressure and Vice President B. J. Habibie replaced him. As a result of the financial crisis that hit
20500-619: The ratios rose from 13% to 21% and then as high as 40%, while the other northern newly industrialized countries fared much better. Only in Thailand and South Korea did debt service-to-exports ratios rise. South Korea , Indonesia and Thailand were the countries most affected by the crisis. Hong Kong , Laos , Malaysia and the Philippines were also hurt by the slump. Brunei , mainland China , Japan , Singapore , Taiwan , and Vietnam were less affected, although all suffered from
20664-500: The research of Enrico Fermi and others into nuclear chain reactions . They had it signed by Albert Einstein and delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt . Roosevelt called on Lyman Briggs of the National Bureau of Standards to head an Advisory Committee on Uranium ; Briggs met with Szilard, Wigner and Edward Teller in October 1939. The committee reported back to Roosevelt in November that uranium "would provide
20828-405: The role of asymmetric information in the financial markets that led to a " herd mentality " among investors that magnified a small risk in the real economy. The crisis has thus attracted attention from behavioral economists interested in market psychology . Another possible cause of the sudden risk shock may also be attributable to the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty on 1 July 1997 . During
20992-408: The role of the real economy in the crisis compared to the financial markets. The rapidity with which the crisis happened has prompted Sachs and others to compare it to a classic bank run prompted by a sudden risk shock. Sachs pointed to strict monetary and contractionary fiscal policies implemented by the governments on the advice of the IMF in the wake of the crisis, while Frederic Mishkin points to
21156-497: The rupiah currency trading band from 8% to 12%. As a result, the rupiah suddenly came under severe attack in August. Therefore, on the 14th of the month, the managed floating exchange regime was replaced by a free-floating exchange rate arrangement. The rupiah dropped further due to the shift. The IMF came forward with a rescue package of $ 23 billion, but the rupiah was sinking further amid fears over corporate debts, massive selling of rupiah, and strong demand for dollars. The rupiah and
21320-458: The rupiah's decline, and many reacted by buying dollars through selling rupiah, undermining the value of the latter further. Before the crisis, the exchange rate between the rupiah and the dollar was roughly 2,600 rupiah to 1 U.S. dollar. The rate plunged to over 11,000 rupiah to 1 U.S. dollar on 9 January 1998, with spot rates over 14,000 during 23–26 January and trading again over 14,000 for about six weeks during June–July 1998. On 31 December 1998,
21484-448: The same time, Southeast Asia's export growth slowed dramatically in the spring of 1996, deteriorating their current account position. Some economists have advanced the growing exports of China as a factor contributing to ASEAN nations' export growth slowdown, though these economists maintain the main cause of their crises was excessive real estate speculation. China had begun to compete effectively with other Asian exporters particularly in
21648-572: The scale of operations was too great for the area, and it was decided to build the pilot plant at Oak Ridge and keep a research and testing facility in Chicago. Delays in establishing the plant at Argonne led Arthur Compton to authorize the Metallurgical Laboratory to construct the first nuclear reactor beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. The reactor required an enormous amount of highly purified graphite blocks and uranium in both metallic and powdered oxide forms. At
21812-540: The site be located far from the existing uranium production facility at Oak Ridge. In December 1942, Groves dispatched Colonel Franklin Matthias and DuPont engineers to scout potential sites. Matthias reported that Hanford Site near Richland, Washington , was "ideal in virtually all respects". It was isolated and near the Columbia River , which could supply sufficient water to cool the reactors. Groves visited
21976-613: The site in January and established the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW), codenamed "Site W". Under Secretary Patterson gave his approval on 9 February, allocating $ 5 million for the acquisition of 430,000 acres (170,000 ha). The federal government relocated some 1,500 residents of nearby settlements, as well as the Wanapum and other tribes using the area. A dispute arose with farmers over compensation for crops, which had already been planted. Where schedules allowed,
22140-566: The site. Fluor Hanford Inc. replaced Westinghouse Hanford Co. on the project. After a chemical explosion in 1997, 11 workers filed a lawsuit alleging they were denied appropriate medical attention and protective gear. Fluor and the workers disagreed on whether the explosion resulted in any injuries. In 2005 the US Department of Energy fined Fluor for safety violations and that same year a jury awarded $ 4.7 million in damages to eleven pipe fitters who claimed they were fired after complaining that
22304-466: The tide of capital fleeing these countries was not to be stopped, the authorities ceased defending their fixed exchange rates and allowed their currencies to float . The resulting depreciated value of those currencies meant that foreign currency-denominated liabilities grew substantially in domestic currency terms, causing more bankruptcies and further deepening the crisis. Other economists, including Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs , have downplayed
22468-528: The time, there was a limited source of pure uranium metal; Frank Spedding of Iowa State University was able to produce only two short tons . Three short tons was supplied by Westinghouse Lamp Plant , produced in a rush with makeshift process. A large square balloon was constructed by Goodyear Tire to encase the reactor. On 2 December 1942, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental reactor known as Chicago Pile-1 . The point at which
22632-438: The two countries were reversed, and in January 1943 Conant notified the British that they would no longer receive atomic information except in certain areas. The British investigated the possibility of an independent nuclear program but determined that it could not be ready in time to impact the war in Europe . By March 1943 Conant decided that James Chadwick and one or two other British scientists were important enough that
22796-612: The world's government-owned oil companies. Fluor has been working on the cleanup and shutdown of atomic energy plants in Ohio and Washington since the 1990s. In 1992, Fluor won a contract with the United States Energy Department to clean up nuclear waste. By 1996 Hanford was the most contaminated nuclear site in the US and the US Department of Energy was conducting a $ 50 billion to $ 60 billion cleanup of
22960-576: Was "pervaded by an atmosphere of enthusiasm and urgency" in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declaration of war on Japan and on Germany . Work was proceeding on three techniques for isotope separation : Lawrence and his team at the University of California investigated electromagnetic separation , Eger Murphree and Jesse Wakefield Beams 's team looked into gaseous diffusion at Columbia University , and Philip Abelson directed research into thermal diffusion at
23124-574: Was a haste to build great conglomerates to compete on the world stage. Many businesses ultimately failed to ensure returns and profitability. The chaebol , South Korean conglomerates, simply absorbed more and more capital investment. Eventually, excess debt led to major failures and takeovers. Amongst other stimuli, the crisis resulted in the bankruptcy of major Korean companies, provoking not only corporations, but also government officials towards corruption. The Hanbo scandal of early 1997 exposed South Korea's economic weaknesses and corruption problems to
23288-475: Was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion . However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid, and worries of a meltdown quickly subsided. Originating in Thailand, where it
23452-573: Was already intimately familiar with the bomb design concepts. However, Oppenheimer had little administrative experience, and, unlike Urey, Lawrence, and Compton, had not won a Nobel Prize, which many scientists felt that the head of such an important laboratory should have. There were also concerns about Oppenheimer's security status, as many of his associates were communists , including his wife, Kitty ; his girlfriend, Jean Tatlock ; and his brother, Frank . A long conversation in October 1942 convinced Groves and Nichols that Oppenheimer thoroughly understood
23616-664: Was appointed as the CEO, followed by David Seaton in 2011. In 2005, Fluor's headquarters were moved to the Las Colinas area in Irving, Texas . In December 2015, Fluor announced that it would take over Dutch industrial services company Stork . The acquisition of this company, which modifies and maintains large power plants, was completed in March 2016, in a stock purchase worth $ 755 million. In May 2019, David Seaton stepped down as CEO and
23780-562: Was awarded a $ 5 billion project for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia, to design facilities that capture sour gas , which is expelled from oil wells as waste, in order to refine it into fuel. That same year a partially completed copper and cobalt mine in Africa was cancelled due to a war in the neighboring region of Angola and declining copper prices. In 1979, Fluor had 13 projects for building United States power plants and had served more than half of
23944-595: Was created in Houston in 1948. Fluor's headquarters were moved to Alhambra , an inner suburb of Los Angeles, in 1940 in order to be closer to its oil and gas clients, before moving again to Orange County , California in the 1960s due to concerns about the cost of living and traffic. John Simon Fluor died in 1944. He was succeeded by his son Peter Fluor, who died three years later. Peter was followed by Shirley Meserve (1947) and Donald Darnell (1949), then John Simon "Si" Fluor Jr. in 1952 and J. Robert (Bob) Fluor in 1962. Fluor
24108-478: Was developed that used uranium-235 . Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment : electromagnetic , gaseous , and thermal . In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. After the feasibility of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1 , was demonstrated in 1942 at the Metallurgical Laboratory in the University of Chicago , the project designed
24272-505: Was dissolved due to the crisis, and eventually Daewoo Motors was sold to the American company General Motors (GM). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided US$ 58.4 billion as a bailout package. In return, Korea was required to take restructuring measures. The ceiling on foreign investment in Korean companies was raised from 26 percent to 100 percent. In addition, the Korean government started financial sector reform program. Under
24436-572: Was empowered to engage in research and large engineering projects. The NDRC Committee on Uranium became the S-1 Section of the OSRD; the word "uranium" was dropped for security reasons. In July 1941, Briggs proposed spending $ 167,000 on researching uranium, particularly the uranium-235 isotope, and plutonium , which had been isolated for the first time at the University of California in February 1941. In Britain, Frisch and Rudolf Peierls at
24600-562: Was ideal. Patterson approved the acquisition of the site on 25 November 1942, authorizing $ 440,000 for the purchase of pre-calculated 54,000 acres (22,000 ha), all but 8,900 acres (3,600 ha) of which were already owned by the Federal Government. Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard granted about 45,000 acres (18,000 ha) of United States Forest Service land to the War Department "for so long as
24764-402: Was known as part of the " Asian economic miracle ". In the mid-1990s, Thailand , Indonesia and South Korea had large private current account deficits, and the maintenance of fixed exchange rates encouraged external borrowing and led to excessive exposure to foreign exchange risk in both the financial and corporate sectors. In the mid-1990s, a series of external shocks began to change
24928-488: Was known as the Tom Yum Kung crisis ( Thai : วิกฤตต้มยำกุ้ง ) on 2 July, it followed the financial collapse of the Thai baht after the Thai government was forced to float the baht due to lack of foreign currency to support its currency peg to the U.S. dollar . Capital flight ensued almost immediately, beginning an international chain reaction. At the time, Thailand had acquired a burden of foreign debt . As
25092-568: Was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1950s. In 1961, Fluor acquired an interest in construction, design and contracting firm William J. Moran. Fluor diversified its business more extensively in 1967, when five companies were merged into a division called Coral Drilling and it started a deep-water oil exploration business in Houston called Deep Oil Technology. It also created Fluor Ocean Services in Houston in 1968 and acquired an interest in other fossil fuel operations in
25256-441: Was mostly domestic. The acquisition allowed the company to use union labor at Fluor, or non-union labor at Daniel, for each client. Fluor made a $ 2.9 billion acquisition of a zinc, gold, lead and coal mining operation, St. Joe Minerals , in 1981 after a bidding competition for the business with Seagram . By the 1980s, Fluor's primary business was building large refineries, petrochemical plants, oil pipelines and other facilities for
25420-443: Was put aside to concentrate on producing fission bombs. Teller raised the speculative possibility that an atomic bomb might "ignite" the atmosphere because of a hypothetical fusion reaction of nitrogen nuclei. Bethe calculated that it was "extremely unlikely". A postwar report co-authored by Teller concluded that "whatever the temperature to which a section of the atmosphere may be heated, no self-propagating chain of nuclear reactions
25584-411: Was re-structured into four business groups: an engineering and construction firm called Fluor Daniel; an equipment rental, staffing and telecommunications division called Fluor Global Services; a coal-mining business called A.T. Massey Coal Co. and an administrative and support division called Fluor Signature Services. In January 1998, McCraw (age 63) resigned after being diagnosed with bladder cancer and
25748-408: Was reluctant to share its technological lead and help the United States develop its own atomic bomb. But the British, who had made significant advances in research early in the war, did not have the resources to carry through such a research program into development while a large portion of their economy was engaged in fighting the war; Tube Alloys soon fell behind its American counterpart. The roles of
25912-826: Was replaced by Carlos Hernandez, who joined the firm in 2007. Fluor was ranked 259th in Fortune 500 companies for the year 2022. It has offices in 25 countries. Many of Fluor's operations are located near natural resources, such as uranium in Canada, oil reserves in the Middle East and mines in Australia. About 30 percent of Fluor's revenues are based in the United States as of 2011. Fluor received an "A" ranking in Transparency International 's 2012 anti-corruption study. The company hosts online and in-person anti-corruption training sessions for staff and operates an ethics hotline. Former CEO Alan Boeckmann helped create
26076-508: Was replaced by former Shell Oil President, Philip J. Carroll. That same year, IT Group purchased a 54 percent interest in Fluor Daniel GTI, Fluor's environmental division, for $ 36.3 million. Two years later, the coal mining operation under the A.T. Massey Coal Co. name (part of St. Joe) was spun off into its own business. In 2001, Fluor's four primary subsidiaries were consolidated into a single Fluor Corporation. In 2002 Alan Boeckmann
26240-421: Was required. He spoke to Harvey Bundy and Generals Marshall, Somervell, and Styer about his concerns, advocating that the project be placed under a senior policy committee, with a prestigious officer, preferably Styer, as director. Somervell and Styer selected Groves for the post; General Marshall ordered that he be promoted to brigadier general, as it was felt that the title "general" would hold more sway with
26404-417: Was therefore a success; key American physicists were now aware of the potential power of an atomic bomb. On 9 October 1941, President Roosevelt approved the atomic program after he convened a meeting with Vannevar Bush and Vice President Henry A. Wallace . He created a Top Policy Group consisting of himself—although he never attended a meeting—Wallace, Bush, Conant, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson , and
26568-476: Was to have been a military laboratory with Oppenheimer and other researchers commissioned into the Army, but Robert Bacher and Isidor Rabi balked at the idea and convinced Oppenheimer that other scientists would object. Conant, Groves, and Oppenheimer then devised a compromise whereby the laboratory was operated by the University of California under contract to the War Department. Dorothy McKibbin ran
26732-410: Was too close to a major population center (Knoxville) in the unlikely event of a major nuclear accident. Groves recruited DuPont in November 1942 to be the prime contractor for the construction of the plutonium production complex. The President of the company, Walter S. Carpenter Jr. , wanted no profit of any kind; for legal reasons a nominal fee of one dollar was agreed upon. DuPont recommended that
26896-533: Was used for Chicago Pile 3 , the first reactor using heavy water and natural uranium, which went critical on 15 May 1944. The Chalk River, Ontario , site was established to rehouse the Allied effort at the Montreal Laboratory away from an urban area. A new community was built at Deep River, Ontario , to provide residences and facilities for the team members. The site was chosen for its proximity to
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