June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Fluor Corp., the largest publicly traded U.S. engineering and construction company, said it will bid for a contract next month to repair Iraq's oil network as a way of securing more profitable agreements later on.

California-based Fluor will bid as part of a joint-venture with Amec Plc, Europe's second-biggest rail engineering company, for work worth about $700 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair oil pipelines, refineries and terminals in Iraq, Alan Boeckmann, Fluor's chief executive said.

``Our interest in Iraq is in the long-term'' as expected profit for the Corps of Engineers work is ``not that great,'' Boeckmann said in an interview during a meeting of global and Middle East business and political leaders at the Dead Sea resort in Jordan, organized by the World Economic Forum.

The Corps of Engineers contracted Halliburton Co. unit Kellogg Brown & Root before the March 20 U.S.-led invasion to put out oil well fires, which the U.S. expected Iraqi forces to carry out. The work, which included cleaning up oil spills in the Persian Gulf, was expected to cost as much as $7 billion, according to the head of the Corps of Engineers team in Iraq, General Robert Crear.

As damage from the war was less than expected, Fluor expects the remaining work will cost about a tenth of what was initially forecast, Boeckmann said. Future work may be worth more than that, he said.

``The $7 billion might be extremely small compared to what might be done there over the next five to 10 years,'' Boeckmann said.

Last Updated: June 22, 2003 09:36 EDT